20th century

 

Ezra Pound
Mister Pound is generally considered the poet most responsible for defining and promoting a modernist aesthetic in poetry. In the early teens of the twentieth century, he opened a seminal exchange of work and ideas between British and American writers, and was famous for the generosity with which he advanced the work of such major contemporaries as W. B. Yeats, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, H. D., James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, and especially T. S. Eliot.

‘The Garden’ by Ezra Pound is set within the gardens of Kensington, a traditionally wealthy, and upper class neighborhood that is home to Kensington Palace. The poem was published in 1917, only months before the end of of World War I. The War would leave in indelible mark on English society and Pound depicts the beginnings of social change in only twelve lines of poetry. 
 

The Garden – Ezra Pound (1885-1972)

En robe de parade. Samain

Like a skein of loose silk blown against a wall
She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens,
And she is dying piece-meal
      Tof a sort of emotional anaemia.

And round about there is a rabble
Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.
They shall inherit the earth.

In her is the end of breeding.
Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.
She would like some one to speak to her,
And is almost afraid that I
      Twill commit that indiscretion.

 

1. Using the internet, find out where the poem is set.

2. What type of poem is this?

3. Summarize the topic of the poem in your own words.

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John Steinbeck- Of Mice and Men 

Adults can't decide if they want to require you to read John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men—or make that sure you never even pick it up. Since it was published in 1937, it's been banned about as often as it's been assigned.

Why? Take your pick, really. Killing. Violence. Swearing. Brothels. Racism. Sexism. The book's ending is beyond sad, and might be considered an endorsement of euthanasia. Not to mention, its message isn't exactly full of praise for the American way of life.

Set in the American West during the Great Depression, the book is based on Steinbeck's experiences during a 1936 assignment for the San Francisco News covering the migrant workers in California. Its two main characters, George and Lennie, embody the American struggle to survive the Depression—and capture the isolation and suffering that exist even in the land of opportunity. Despite its filthy-for-the-time language and a real downer of an ending, the book was popular right away, even being chosen as a Book-of-the-Month Club selection before it was published. (That was something like being chosen for Oprah's book club.)
 

And it wasn't just popular with the middle-class book club readers. Critics and scholars praised its gritty realism, and Steinbeck won the 1962 Nobel Prize for Literature  on the strength of this book and others like it.

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1984 by George Orwell
Published in 1949 as a warning against totalitarianism. The chilling dystopia made a deep impression on readers, and his ideas entered mainstream culture in a way achieved by very few books. The book’s title and many of its concepts, such as Big Brother and the Thought Police, are instantly recognized and understood, often as bywords for modern social and political abuses. Orwell wrote Nineteen Eighty-four as a warning after years of brooding on the twin menaces of Nazism and Stalinism. Its depiction of a state where daring to think differently is rewarded with torture, where people are monitored every second of the day, and where party propaganda trumps free speech and thought is a sobering reminder of the evils of unaccountable governments. Winston is the symbol of the values of civilized life, and his defeat is a poignant reminder of the vulnerability of such values in the midst of all-powerful states.

Question:
1984 is said to be a dystopian novel but what does this entail and where does this word come form?