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Modernism literature
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Modernism literature
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Djuna Barnes was an outspoken and fiercely witty modernist writer of the 1920’s. She was known for her somewhat puzzling writing, her bravery when it came to her own journalism, and her everyday intense persona. She is a figure that, one would think, would have never been forgotten, yet with time, and somewhat by her own doing, she has faded into the background of the 1920’s writers. So much so that, “Barnes once described herself as 'the most famous unknown writer', and this was an astute remark.” (Loncraine.)
Barnes was born in 1892, in New York state to her mother and her eccentric Father (who was rather fond of polyamory). She lived in a home with her Grandmother, Father, Mother, her Father’s Mistress, and her brothers and sisters. She and her sibling were never formally schooled, but instead taught by their Grandmother, whose description in Rebecca Loncraine’s article, lends an understanding to Djuna’s unique personality,
The Barnes children were all educated at home, largely by their grandmother, Zadel Barnes, who was a suffragist, journalist and spirit medium. Barnes's childhood was not happy, and it haunted her writing. (Loncraine)
After the separation of her parents, in 1912, she with her Mother and brothers, moved to New York City. She studied at the Pratt Institute of art, until financial troubles forced her to look for work to support her family and her grandmother’s failing health. She is said to have walked into the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and announced, “I can draw and write, and you’d be a fool not to hire me,” a bold statement that landed her a job in journalism, where her career as a soon to be modernist would begin to flourish. Just as her statement that landed her the job was bold, so was her approach to writ...
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...er writer in Paris in the 1920s. For Joyce presented Miss Barnes in 1923 with the original manuscript of Ulysses containing all of it’s annotations.
Works Cited:
Loncraine, Rebecca. "Djuna Barnes: an unknown modernist: Rebecca Loncraine introduces Djuna Barnes, one of America's least known and most intriguing Modernist writers." The English Review 15.3 (2005): 34+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 7 Apr. 2014.
Field, Andrew, and Andrew Field. Djuna, the Formidable Miss Barnes. Austin: University of Texas, 1985. Print.
Bombaci, Nancy. "“Well Of Course, I Used To Be Absolutely Gorgeous Dear”: The Female Interviewer As Subject/Object In Djuna Barnes's Journalism." Criticism 44.2 (2002): 161-185. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 7 Apr. 2014.
Barnes, Djuna. The Book of Repulsive Women: 8 Rhythms and 5 Drawings. Los Angeles, CA: Sun & Moon, 1994. Print.
Gwendolyn Brooks was born on June 7, 1917 in Topeka, Kansas, to KeziahWims Brooks and David Anderson Brooks. Brooks’ family didn’t have much income. Her father David Brooks was a janitor. Keziah Brooks, Gwendolyn’s mother was a school teacher. Soon after Gwendolyn was born her family moved away from Kansas. The Brooks family relocated to Chicago, Illinois, where Brooks remained the rest of her life. Brooks, as a child, loved to read. She was encouraged by her family and friends to do so. She spent most of her childhood immersed in her writing. Gwendolyn became a published poet at an early age. At age 13, Brooks’ poem Eventide was published. Her poem appeared in “American Childhood.” Brooks’ poems were frequently published in the Chicago Defender. At age 16, Brooks had written over seventy poems (J.Williams 28).In Brooks’ early years of writing she spoke on a lot. She talked about racial discrimination and praised African American heroes. Also, Brooks satirized both blacks and whites (A.williams1). In 1993, Gwendolyn meet poet James Weldon Johnson and writer Langston Hughes. The two influenced Brooks’ writing tremendously. The influence lead her to write over seventy poems (Bloom 12).
Further, throughout the book, Sadie and Bessie continuously reminds the reader of the strong influence family life had on their entire lives. Their father and mother were college educated and their father was the first black Episcopal priest and vice principal at St. Augustine Co...
Haney-Peritz, Janice. "Monumental feminism and literature's ancestral house: Another look at The Yellow Wallpaper". Women's Studies. 12:2 (1986): 113-128.
Kort, Carol. A to Z of American Women Writers. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2007. Print.
Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: the Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-century Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale UP, 2000. Print.
It is important to not that the direction of Brooks’s literary career shifted dramatically in the late 1960’s. While attending a black writers’ conference she was struck by the passion of the young poets. Before this happened, she had regarded herself as essentially a universalist, who happened to be black. After the conference, she shifted from writing about her poems about black people and life to writing for the black population.
Born in San Francisco, in the year of 1916, Shirley Jackson had an inauspicious entrance to the world, despite the chilling nature of her writing. She moved two years after she was born to Burlingame, California, where she resided for most of her childhood. When she was 17, she began to attend the University of Rochester, she only spent a year there, as after a time of questioning her friend’s loyalty and long periods of unhappiness, she left the school for a year, practicing writing almost religiously, with a minimum of one thousand words every day. In 1937, she entered Syracuse University, at first pursuing a degree in journalism before transferring to the English department.
Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979)
Gilbert, Susan, and Sandra Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: the Woman Writer and the Nineteenth Century Literary Imagination. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 1979.
Perkins, Geroge, and Barbara Perkins. The American Tradition in Literature. 12th ed. Vol. 2. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. Print
Fetterley, Judith. The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Literature. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, xi-xxiv. Print.
As every well-read person knows, the background in which you grow up plays a huge role in how you write and your opinions. Fuller grew up with a very strict education, learning multiple classic languages before she was eight years old. Fern grew up with writers all throughout her family and had a traditional education and saw first hand the iniquities of what hard-working had to contend with. Through close analysis of their work, a reader can quickly find the connections between their tone, style, content, and purpose and their history of their lives and their educational upbringing.
Perkins George, Barbara. The American Tradition in Literature, 12th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. Print
Wolff, Cynthia Griffin. "Un-Utterable Longing: The Discourse of Feminine Sexuality in The Awakening." Studies in American Fiction 24.1 (Spring 1996): 3-23. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Janet Witalec. Vol. 127. Detroit: Gale, 2002. Literature Resource Center. Web. 19 May 2014.
Lindberg, Laurie. "Wordsmith and Woman: Morag Gunn's Triumph Through Language." New Perspectives on Margaret Laurence: Poetic Narrative, Multiculturalism, and Feminism. Ed. Greta M. K. McCormick Coger. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1996. 187-201.