Ezra Pound (1885-1972)Sherwood Anderson

Eugene O’NeillSinclair Lewis

The Sad Young MenThe Sad Young Men

Lesson 10

Pre-Text Questions

What is the theme of this essay?

In which paragraph is it stated?

What do you know about the Lost Generation?

Is it a term of a literary movement?

What kind of writing is this one?

What is the function of the first paragraph?

How do these writers develop this paragraph?

bittersweet longing for things, persons, or situations of the past

nostalgic

treated in a passionate, idealized manner to shock thrill and rouse the interest of people

sensationally romanticized

nostalgia

Why a No…more…than…sentence structure is used?

the so-called Revolt of the Younger Generation has been more commented upon than all the other aspect

Can we replace questionings by questions?

What literary device is used in the two phrases-- nostalgic recollection and curious questionings ?

At the very mention of this ten-year, middle-aged people begin to think about it longingly and young people become curious and start asking all kinds of questions

The slightest mention of the decade brings nostalgicrecollections to the middle-aged and curious questionings by the young

What has been talked about after the colon?

recollection memories

questionings questionsfurther explanations

an improper action but very enjoyable and exciting

deliciously illicit thrill

speakeasy flask-toting sheik

drugstore cowboyflapper

Why do they think the answers to such questions must necessarily be both yes and no ?

business affair or matter; process

to view or judge things or events in a way that show their true relations to one another

see in perspective

jazzmad youth

see things in the right perspective

see things in the wrong perspective

it was reluctantly realized…that our country was nolonger isolated in either politics or tradition

some people in the U. S. fully understood, though unwillingly, that the U. S. could no longer remain isolated politically or in matters of social customs and practices. If these people did not state their views openly, at least, they understood it subconsciously.

we had developed and grown into a nation respected and esteemed by all other nations in the world

we had reached an international stature

What is your understanding of the artificial walls of provincial morality ?

What literary device is used in this phrase?

we have become a world power so we can no longer, on our action, just follow the principles of right and wrong as accepted in our own country, nor can we remain isolated geographically protected by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In other words, the U. S. can no longer pursue a policy of isolationism.

Victorian gentility

excessive or affected refinement and elegance attributed to Victorian England

In any case, America could not avoid casting aside its middle-class respectability and affected refinement.

The rejection of Victorian gentility was, in anycase, inevitable.

the quality or state of not involving personal feelings or the emotions

impersonality

What features does the American industry have?

There is no doubt that your design is excellent, but we believe there is still plenty of room for improvement.

room suitable opportunity; occasion; scope

After WWI, America became a highly industrialized country. There were big successful factories operating everywhere. Business became huge corporations devoid of any human feelings and the ruthless desire to dominate was exercised on a large scale. In this new atmosphere, the principles of polite, courteous and considerate behaviour and conduct that were formed in a quieter and less competitive age (before WWI) could no longer exist.

What is compared to a catalytic agent?

What does a pattern of mass murder refer to?

The war only helped to speed up the breakdown of the Victorian social structure

The war acted merely as a catalytic agent in thisbreakdown of the Victorian social structure

when the war was over, the young people used their newly released violent energies, both in Europe and America, to destroy the 19th century society that was getting old and becoming unacceptable

after the shooting was over, were turned…to thedestruction of an obsolescent nineteenth-centurysociety

in America at least, the young people were strongly inclined to shirk their responsibilities. They pretended to be worldly-wise, drinking and behavingnaughtily. They pretended to live like unconventional artists or poets, breaking the moral code of the community.

What is the relationship between this sentence andthe following ones?

What did these youth do?

much-publicized orgies

Greenwich Village

wild, riotous, licentious merrymakings which were often and widely reported in newspapers and magazines

What does the crash of the world economic structure refer to ?

the Great Depression

the stalemate of 1915-1916

How many subjects are there in the secondsentence of paragraph 5?

the increasing insolence of Germany

our young men joined the armies of foreign countries to fight in the war

our young men began to enlist under foreign flags

our official reluctance to declare our status as a belligerent

that our government was reluctant to declare war

John Dos PassosWhat can we learn about the youth’s idea of warfrom this quotation?

magnolia-scented

a noisy, disorderly fight or quarrel fracas

Furthermore, many speakers at high school meetings told the boys that hard life of the war would help to form their character. These speakers convinced more than enough these boys, who were sensible in many other respects, that fighting in the European war would be of great value to them personally, in addition to being idealistic and exciting.

Furthermore, there were…idealistic and exciting.

pompous and patriotic speeches made during the Fourth of July celebrations

Fourth-of-July bombast

Why do the authors choose the phrase had been guilty of ?

outgrown town and families

could no longer adapt themselves to lives in their home towns or their families

What literary device is used in this sentence?

to resume living and behaving simply and innocently as the former Victorian social structure required them to do

resume the pose of self-deceiving Victorian innocence

The writers and artists living in Greenwich Village set the example which other young intellectuals throughout the country followed.

Greenwich Village set the pattern.

their minds and pens inflamed against war, Babbittry, and “Puritanical” gentility,

What literary device is used in this sentence?

metonymy

it was only natural that hopeful young writers whose minds and writings were filled with violent anger against war, Babbittry, and “Puritanical” gentility, should come in great numbers to live in Greenwich Village, the traditional artistic center.

What are matchsticks and conflagration compared to respectively?

a group of persons sharing a common interest fast

set

living in a reckless, wild, dissipated way

Belleau Wood Chateau-Thierry

How can we understand the word toy ?

Ford Model T 1924Model T

the Dutch Colonial home in Floral Heights

a large, destructive fire conflagration misdeeds of the non-intellectuals

to intensify and spread this revolt of the young by their own misdeeds

Each town was proud that it had a group of wild, reckless people, who lived unconventional lives

Rotary luncheon

smug, self-satisfied, conformist in cultural matters

boobery

repeated, central idea; theme burden

the burden of a speech

The main theme of all the articles in the book was that people were not paying serious attention to what the most gifted and intelligent people (the young intellectuals) were saying,

The burden of the volume was…being ignored,

Journalism is only a tool that helps businessmen to make money

Journalism was a mere adjunct to moneymaking

to strive to get all the material things one’s neighbors or associates have