The Linguistic Culture-12 (American Science) (1157938), страница 4
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Toklas” wasdevoted to her life in Paris, her meeting with famous French artists andexpatriate American writers such as Ernest Hemingway. The great master ofthe modern prose style E. Hemingway (1899-1961) in his early books“Fiesta”(1926), “ For Whom the Bell Tolls” (1940) also expressed the frames ofmind of the “lost generation”. E. Hemingway volunteered for an ambulanceunit in Spain during World War I, but was wounded and hospitalized for sixmonths. His first successful novel “The Sun also Rises”(1926) is about the groupof American expatriates living in France and Spain who had lost their joy in lifeand felt wasted.
His “Farewell to Arms” (1929) is another work that reflectedthe growing disillusionment with war. The main idea of the author is the tragicstoicism of his main characters. According to Hemingway a man must retaincourage and dignity under very harsh circumstances, even facing the threat ofdeath. While living in Cuba in the early 1950s, he wrote “The Old Man and theSea” (1952) about the courage and fortitude of an old Cuban fisherman,awarded with the Nobel Prize in 1954.More than ten other American writers received the Nobel Prize forLiterature.
The very first American to be honored by a Nobel Prize in Literaturein 1930 was Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951).In his popular novels “MainStreet”(1920), “Babbitt”(1922) and “Arrow smith”(1925) S. Lewis coulddescribe the lives and values of small town people with sincerity and greatunderstanding.William Faulkner (1897-1962), known for his novels about people livingin the South “ The Sound and the Fury”(1929),”As I lay Dying”(1930),”Intruderin that Dust”(1948), received the Nobel prize in 1949. Faulkner`s style is verymuch different from that of Hemingway. While Hemingway wrote in short,simple sentences and used a great deal of conversation, Faulkner’s sentencessometimes carry on for almost an entire page, with a lot clauses strungtogether by commas.Among the other Nobel prize winners there are a playwright Eugene0’Neill(1888- 1953), Saul Bellow (1915), Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-91) andJohn Steinbeck (1902-68), noted for “Grapes of Wrath” and “The Winter of OurDiscontent” picturing the complexities of life in America.John Cheever (1912-82) published the novels and stories “The WapshotChronicle”(1957),”Bullety Park”(1969), “Falconer”(1977) in which he usedsatire to express socio-economic essence of life.
J.D. Salinger (1919- ) achievedgreat literary success with the publication of his novel “The Catcher in theRye”, centered on the character of 16-year-old boy, who flees his elite boardingschool for the outside world only to become disillusioned by its materialismand phoniness A playwright and poet Dubose Hayward (1885-1940) wroteabout the life of black American Dockers. His popular novel “Porgy” was stagedin 1927 and later became the plot of opera “Porgy and Bess”.
Black Americansalso wrote about their experiences in American society. The. Black writerRichard Wright (1908- 1960) became well known as the author of the numberof novels describing the feelings and fates of black Americans.During the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s more AfroAmericans began to write. James Baldwin (1924-1987) is well-known writer ofthat time. His first novel “Go Tell It on the Mountain” (1953) is about his ownlife as a poor child growing up in New York ghetto, Harlem. In protest againstracism in American society, J. Baldwin emigrated and lived abroad until 1977.The life of Harlem inspired the poems of one of the best known black Americanpoets of the 20PthP century Langston Hughes (1902-67). To Hughes it seemedthat the people of Harlem’s hopes of better attitude had been delayed –“deferred” for too long:“What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in thesun? Or fester like a sore-and then run? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Ordoes it explode?”Maya Angelou is a contemporary black American author and poet. Herfirst book “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” (1970) has an autobiographicalcharacter. In 1993 at President Clinton’s first inauguration ceremony, she readher poem “On the Pulse of Morning “on TV to the entire country. Alex Hayley’sepic story of the black experience “Roots” (1976) with the subsequenttelevision special caused white America to stop and investigate its “past sins».In 1983 Alice Walker won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel ‘The Color Purple”,devoted to her struggle for equality.In the 1950s there appeared a group of unconventional writers andartists “The Beat Generation” The writers of this generation, called beatniks,wanted to create a new kind of writing grown from poetry readings in the formof jazz.The poetry of Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) was consideredunconventional because it did not follow the structure of traditional verse.
JackKerouac`s (1922-1969) writing had a new spontaneous style. His best-knownnovel “ On the Road” describes beatniks wandering through America seekingan idealistic dream of communal life and beauty. In the 1960s a young writerand singer Bob Dylon used protest lyrics to support the anti-war movement ofthe time. For many young people he became the voice of the conscience of hisgeneration.
His lyrics set to old tunes, were ironic comments on what he saw asthe deceit and hypocrisy of those in power.In the 1960s and 1970s a new ethnic literature emerged. Dee Brown’shistory of the American West “Bury My Heart and Wounded Knee” (1971) ledthe way for a serious of books on the American Indian.By the late 1970s and the 1980s science fiction had moved to a generallyaccepted form of literature. Popular writers here included Isaac Asimov andArthur Clarke. The 1980s also saw the rise of popular horror fiction with DeanKoontz, V.C. Andews, Peter Straub, Clive Barker and Stephen King as the mostprolific writers.Recent literature included John Updike’s four novels ( “Rabbit at Rest”, “Self-Consciousness” and others) and Tom Clancy.
His books, such as “The Huntfor Red October”, “Red Storm Rising” and “Patriot Games” top both thehardback and overall bestseller books.The TheaterThe greatest flowering of American drama came between 1920 and1970. In those years, startling, powerful, and illuminating works, both tragicand comic,flowed from the pens of Eugene O’Neill, Thornton Wilder,Maxwell Anderson, Robert Sherwood, Kaufman and Hart, Lillian Hellman,Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and William Inge. These playwrightsreflected the events of their times, beginning with World War I, the GreatDepression, World War II, and the Cold War.
In his plays “Desire Under theElms”(1924), “Mourning Becomes Electra”(1931),”Long Day’s journey intoNight”, “The Iceman Cometh”(1946). The first important American playwrightof serious drama Eugene O’Neil ( 1988-1953) made deep and sensitiveanalyses of human relationships. The plays of notable playwrightArthurMiller(1915) “All My Sons”(1947), “Death of a Salesman”(1949),”TheCrucible”(1953) , “A View from the Bridge”(1955) and others were staged inmany countries of the world and brought him a world prominence.The playwrights who came after them were inspired by many events oftheir time: assassination of John F. Kennedy, the student rebellions of the1960s, the war in Vietnam, etc.
Each playwright, with an individual style and amessage, has been mining the American society. Several of them A.R. Gurney,John Guare, David Rabe, Sam Shepard received both national andinternational popularity. There were also a number of women playwrights TinaHowe, Marsha Norman, and Wendy Wasserstein.One notable development in recent years is the “theater of absurd”(Edward Albee).
There are also experiments with electronic music andlighting, body movements instead of spoken words, and spontaneousaudience participation in some performances.Black theater presents plays about black people, written by blackplaywrights, and performed by black casts. Originally such plays used to carrymessages of protest against racial prejudice. Today black theater is increasinglyconcerned with blacks as individual human beings and their life problems. Blacktheatrical performances usually use black music: spirituals, gospel singing andjazz.Most important new plays are produced in the theaters located on or nearBroadway in the midtown area of New York City. There are over 15000professional actors in New York alone and another 20000 or so in the state ofCalifornia.
Over 16000 professional musicians and composers live in New York,and almost 23000 more in California. Every year outstanding Broadwayplaywrights, actors, musicians, directors, choreographers and technicians arenominated for Tony Awards. August Wilson, an Afro-American playwright,received both a Tony and a Pulitzer Prize for his play “Fences”, devoted to thefate of a baseball player who struggles with the difficulties of everyday life.Wendy Assertion, a female playwright won a Tony for her “The HeidiChronicles”.Off-Broadway theaters are shown around Manhattan in small theatersand off-off Broadway companies often play in former garages, offices andstores.
Sometimes there is no raised stage and the actors perform in the centerof the hall, surrounded by the audience (so-called (“theater-in-the-round”). Inalmost every major city there are professional companies, which followrepertory (rep) schedules. There are also traveling acting companies that tourthroughout the country. Very many theater groups suffer from the lack offinancing and must charge high prices for tickets in order to pay productioncosts and make profit.The moviesOriginally American cinema was born in the East, when in 1903 acameraman Edwin S. Porter turned out a short film.
The first “Patent CinemaCompany” was formed in 1908 in Chicago. The first crew included 8 cinema-making firms. Those who did not go into it went to Los-Angeles, California.Soon the number of film companies, producers, actors, and technical staff grewup there and the first film studio was founded in 1911 in Hollywood.
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