Literary Movements of the 20th Century

Why This Matters

The 20th century wasn't just a time period—it was a literary earthquake. You're being tested on how writers responded to massive cultural upheavals: two world wars, civil rights struggles, technological revolution, and philosophical crises about what it even means to be human. Understanding these movements means understanding why authors broke traditional rules, how they experimented with form and content, and what social forces drove their innovations.

Don't just memorize dates and names. Know what each movement was reacting against and what techniques define it. When you see a passage on an exam, you should be able to identify its movement based on style, theme, and worldview—then explain why that movement emerged when it did. These connections between historical context and literary technique are exactly what FRQs and analytical essays demand.

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Reactions to Modernity and War

The early 20th century forced writers to confront a world shattered by industrialization and unprecedented violence. Traditional narrative forms felt inadequate to capture modern fragmentation.

Modernism

• Emerged as a direct response to World War I and industrialization—writers rejected Victorian optimism after witnessing mechanized slaughter and urban alienation
• Experimented with fragmented structure and non-linear narrative—reflecting the psychological disorientation of modern life
• Central themes include alienation, loss of meaning, and the search for order—think T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" or Fitzgerald's hollow American Dream

Stream of Consciousness

• A narrative technique capturing unfiltered thought—attempts to replicate how the mind actually works, not how stories traditionally flow
• Pioneered by Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and William Faulkner—Joyce's Ulysses remains the landmark example
• Characterized by minimal punctuation and associative logic—forces readers to experience consciousness rather than observe it from outside

Surrealism

• Sought to unlock the unconscious mind through irrational imagery—influenced by Freud's theories about dreams and repressed desires
• Founded by André Breton in 1924—began as a visual art movement but deeply influenced poetry and prose
• Juxtaposes unexpected elements to destabilize reality—challenges readers to find meaning beyond logical connections

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Philosophy Meets Fiction

Some movements emerged directly from philosophical inquiry, turning abstract ideas about existence into narrative form. These writers asked: if life has no inherent meaning, how do we write about it?

Existentialism

• Focuses on individual freedom, choice, and responsibility—humans must create their own meaning in an indifferent universe
• Key figures include Sartre, Camus, and de Beauvoir—Camus's The Stranger is the quintessential existentialist novel
• Explores alienation and "authentic" living—characters often face moments of crisis that reveal life's fundamental absurdity

Absurdism

• Emphasizes the conflict between humans seeking meaning and a meaningless universe—distinct from existentialism in its focus on this tension rather than resolution
• Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ionesco pioneered Absurdist drama—Waiting for Godot defines the genre
• Uses circular plots, nonsensical dialogue, and futile actions—form mirrors content; the structure itself feels meaningless

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Identity, Culture, and Marginalized Voices

Not all literary innovation came from European philosophical traditions. Some of the century's most vital movements emerged from communities asserting their cultural identity and challenging dominant narratives.

Harlem Renaissance

• Centered in 1920s Harlem, celebrating African American art and identity—the first major recognition of Black literary achievement in American culture
• Featured Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Claude McKay—Hughes's jazz-influenced poetry and Hurston's use of dialect transformed American literature
• Addressed racial identity, social justice, and double consciousness—writers navigated being both American and Black in a segregated society

Feminist Literature

• Examines women's experiences and challenges patriarchal structures—gained momentum alongside women's rights movements throughout the century
• Key authors span generations: Woolf, Morrison, Atwood—Woolf's A Room of One's Own remains foundational criticism
• Explores identity, oppression, and gender as social construct—often recovers silenced female voices and rewrites male-dominated narratives

Magical Realism

• Blends supernatural elements seamlessly into realistic settings—the magical is presented as ordinary, not fantastical
• Rooted in Latin American literature, especially García Márquez and Allende—One Hundred Years of Solitude defined the genre globally
• Explores postcolonial identity and cultural memory—magic often represents indigenous or marginalized worldviews within dominant "realistic" frameworks

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Rebellion and Counterculture

Some movements defined themselves primarily through rejection—of mainstream values, conventional morality, or bourgeois respectability.

Beat Generation

• 1950s movement rejecting conformity and materialism—emerged from post-WWII America's suburban complacency
• Key figures: Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs—Ginsberg's "Howl" and Kerouac's On the Road became counterculture bibles
• Embraced spontaneity, spirituality, and raw experience—Kerouac's "spontaneous prose" rejected revision as artificial

Postmodernism

• Rejects grand narratives and absolute truths—emerged mid-century as skepticism toward Modernism's search for meaning
• Characterized by irony, self-referentiality, and genre-mixing—texts often acknowledge they're texts, breaking the fourth wall
• Blurs high and low culture distinctions—a comic book reference carries the same weight as a Shakespeare allusion

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Quick Reference Table

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Self-Check Questions

1. Which two movements both address life's meaninglessness but differ in whether meaning can be created? What distinguishes their conclusions?

2. If you encountered a passage with minimal punctuation, associative logic, and interior monologue, which technique would you identify—and which broader movement does it belong to?

3. Compare and contrast the Harlem Renaissance and Feminist Literature: what do they share in their approach to dominant narratives, and how do their central concerns differ?

4. A Postmodernist and a Beat writer both reject mainstream 1950s America. How would their methods of rejection differ in tone and technique?

5. An FRQ asks you to analyze how a 20th-century author uses form to reflect theme. Which movement's techniques would provide the strongest evidence for arguing that structure mirrors content?