Light in August | Historical Context
Modernism
American literature written in the 1920s and early 1930s was dominated by a group of writers who were disillusioned by World War I (1914–1918). This group, which would come to be known as the modernists, reflected the zeitgeist, or spirit, of their age—a time when, in the aftermath of war, many Americans had lost faith in traditional institutions such as the government, social institutions, established religions, and even in humanity itself.
Modernism became one of the most fruitful periods in American letters. Modernist authors such as Ernest...
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