_Postwar_Poetry.pptVIP

Chapter 20 Postwar Poetry Poets of the 1940s Generation I. Postwar Poetry 1.The Social Background: ★ In the wake of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, America embraced capitalism and conformity. This was the era of the Red Scare, when people not only were afraid of the spread of communism but were actually blacklisting one another for sympathizing with the Soviet cause. The Beat poets rebelled against what they saw as dangerous conformity; they denounced capitalism and distrusted the government.  ★After the war, the United States and the Soviet Union expressed their mutually adversarial stance through a Cold War, in which deterrence, rather than direct military intervention or actual combat, served as a primary means. ★In sharp contrast to the economic devastation and loss of human life of its allies Great Britain and the Soviet Union, the U.S. emerged from World War II in excellent economic shape. Continuity of the prewar and wartime growth and opportunity proved delusory, particularly for female factory workers and African American veterans. ★The postwar period is characterized by a host of movements, including Civil Rights, Antiwar and Disarmament, Black Arts, Drug Legalization, and Feminism. The spirit of protest that shaped the 1960s and 1970s deeply influenced these poets. Poetry often played a part in these protest movements, as Ginsbergs performance in front of the Pentagon suggests. Some of these poets began to veer in a new direction in theme and form, several different poetic groups which drew more attention from the tradition of Whitman,Ezra Pound,etc.these were included in Donald M.Allens famous 1960 partisan anthology of the new American poetry,1945-1960, in which he grouped the postwar poets into different schools. Donald M.Allens classification Black Mountain School Poets of the Beat Generation The San Francisco Renaissance Poets of the New York School Other poets who have developed their own style and ideas of poetry Confess