Art and Literature in the 1920's 

 

 

 

 

 

 F. Scott Fitzgerald

 

 

 

F. Scott Fitzgerald was born September 29, 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota.  He attended Princeton University and wrote for the school paper but was then put on academic probation after he ignored his schoolwork.  He joined the Army in 1917 and fought in World War I.  He fell in love with Zelda Sayre but she turned him down because he was not successful so he went back to St. Paul where he started writing his first novel This Side of Paradise.  His novel was published in March 1920 and it did extremely well.  He then started working on his second novel The Beautiful and the Damned.  Fitzgerald spent the winters of 1924 and 1925 in Rome where he revised and edited The Great Gatsby and when he was on his way to France, his book was published.  The book received praise from critics but the sales were disappointing.  F. Scott Fitzgerald died of a heart attack on December 21, 1941.  Novels written by F. Scott Fitzgerald include;

 

 

This Side of Paradise, Tender is the Night, The Last Tycoon, The Beautiful and the Damned, and The Great Gatsby

 

 

 

 

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Langston Hughes

      

 

     Langston Hughes was a major writer of the 1920's.  As an African American during the 20's and being only the second African American to earn a living on writing, taking after Paul Laurence Dunbar, most of his works were more diverse and different than any other writers of that time.

     Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri.  Hughes started writing poetry in the 8th grade and was chosen as the class poet.  One of his most famous poems which was also probably one of his most famous was "The Negro Speaks of Rivers".  Many of his other poems and works were published in "Crisis Magazine" and "oppertunity Magazine".  Agruably his best work of his career was "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" which was about how black poets wanted to be treated just like white poets and do not be afraid to show your real self.  In 1923, Hughes traveled to the Senegal, Nigeria, the Cameroons, Belgium Congo, Angola, and Guinea, Italy, France, Russia and Spain.

     One of his favorite things to do was sitting in clubs listening to blues and jazz and write poetry. Through these experiences Hughes wrote in a new style which he wrote"The Weary Blues" in.  He moved back to Harlem during the time of the Harlem Renaissance.  There he started writing many poems and essays untill he moved to Washington D.C where he accepted a job from Dr. Carter G. Woodson but he moved back to Harlem latter that same year.

 

 

  

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Ernest Hemingway

 

 

     Ernest hemmingway (1899-1961) was born in Oak Park Illinios and at the age of 17, began writing in the Kansas City Newspaper office.  During World War I, he went to Italy and joined the Italian ambulance unit and was wounded.  The italian government decorated him with medals and when we arrived back in the states, started writing for both Canadian and American newspapers but was sent to greece to cover the Greek Revolution. During 1926, he wrote "The Sun Also Rises" and then in 1929 wrote "A Farewell to Arms".  The two did very well and in 1927, he wrote "Men Without Women".  Ernest Hemingway died in 1961 in Idaho.

 

 

 

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Winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature in the 1920's

 

• 1920 Knut Hamsun, Norway
• 1921 Anatole France, France
• 1922 Jacinto Benavente, Spain
• 1923 William Butler Yeats
• 1924 Wladyslaw Reymont, Poland
• 1925 George Bernard Shaw, Ireland
• 1926 Grazia Deledda, Italy
• 1927 Henri Bergson, France
• 1928 Sigrid Undset, Norway
• 1929 Thoman Mann, Germany
• 1930 Sinclair Lewis, United States

 

 

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The Harlem Renaissance

 

 

     Harlem Renaissance was the period of time from the end of World War I and through the middle of the 1930s Depression, during which a group of talented African-American writers produced a sizable body of literature in the four genres of poetry, fiction, drama, and essay. The Harlem Renaissance marked the first time that big time publishers and critics took African American literature seriously. It made African American literature and arts attracted a significant large attention from the nation. Although it was primarily a literary movement, it was closely related to developments in African American music, theater, art, and politics. Some famous people that were very well known for their accomplishments in the Harlem Renaissance were Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Nella Larsen, Eric Walrond, Rudolph Fisher, Jean Toomer, and Arna Bontemps.

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Jazz

 

 

     Jazz was a musical art influenced by Southern America and had a significant influence in the 1920's.  New York city was the birth place of all the hopping new jazz clubs and anyone that wanted to be recongnised played at those clubs. The famous Cotton Club housed Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Bessie Smith, Cab Calloway, The Nicholas Brothers, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and much more. This new hip music caught the ears of listeners everywhere. it was a form of poetry and music combined which allowed the musians to express themselves to the audience about how they felt.

 

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Art Deco Style

 

 

     Art Deco Style was a new and elegent style of decor of architecture and design in the 1920's.It is characterized by the use of angular, symmetrical geometric forms. It was primarily a style of dominant in decorative art, fashion, jewelry, textiles, furniture design, interior decoration, and architecture. It was the Modernist follow-up style on Art Nouveau but just more simplier. Art Deco was part of the new and improved 'modern' look.

 

 

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Footnotes

 

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1954/hemingway-bio.html

 

http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/biography.html

 

http://www.redhotjazz.com/hughes.html

 

http://kirjasto.sci.fi/fsfitzg.htm

 

http://find.galegroup.com/

 

<http://find.galegroup.com/srcx/infomark

 

http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/tbacig/studproj/is3099/jazzcult/20sjazz/jazzculture.html

 

http://www.mschon.com/1920307.html