20世纪美国文学教案.doc

Chapter 1 The 1920s Unit one Introduction Goals and Purposes To make students get to know the background and features of the literature in the 1920s Main Contents Histroy Background Features of the literature The Lost generation Keys and Obstacles Features of the literature The definition of the Lost generation Features of the literature Teaching Methods and Strategies Teacher’s introduction Teacher’s analysis Main Body I. Introduction The 1920s is a flowering period of American literature. It is considered “the second renaissance” of American literature, with a greater number of great writers producing a voluminous amount of distinguished literary works.The works of T. S. Eliot and Ernest Hemingway and their generation constituted an adequate expression of the spirit of their times. The nicknames for this period: (1) Roaring 20s – comfort (2) Dollar Decade – rich (3) Jazz Age – Jazz music II. History Background The 1920s was between two events of great historic significance, the First World War and the Great Depression, it assumed a unique importance of its own. 1. Economically: 1) It proved tremendously profitable; the United States made a great deal of money in the war and became, as a whole, a lot richer, so that there appeared an economic boom, a deceptive affluence, when the war was over. 2) People became aware of a sudden jump in technology. All of a sudden automobiles and radios appeared, which helped to widen the horizon of the people and increase their knowledge. The movie revolution and the music, notably Jazz, now becoming available to everybody, enriched and impacted the way of popular thinking. 3) The country became urban in these years; a new type of industrial economy developed. Mass production, mass consumption, and mass leisure became essential to economic and cultural life and were soon to dominate the nations culture and institutions. 4) A social revolution was going on. Old moral codes were breaking down. Old modes of perception w