This document provides an agenda and background information for an ELIT 48C class. The agenda includes a discussion of various modernist manifestos and their defining texts. It also introduces the students to author Susan Glaspell and provides a brief biography of her life and work. The biography notes that Glaspell was a pioneering female author who often featured strong female protagonists and focused on women's experiences. Students are assigned to read and discuss her play Trifles and identify any important symbols used to convey deeper meaning.

1. ELIT 48C Class #3
• Spelling Error #2: Don’t Misspell “bated
breath.”
– If you write baited breath, everyone will suspect
fishing is your favorite hobby. The word should be
spelled bated, which comes from abated, meaning
held.

2. AGENDA
• Modern Manifestos
– Marinetti
– Loy
– Pound
– Cather
– Williams
– Hughes
• Author Introduction:
– Susan Glaspell

3. Modernist Manifestos: In your groups,
discuss the various manifestos you read for
class. Endeavor to find defining, exemplary
text to share.

4. What is a Modernist Manifesto?

5. Modernist Manifestos
“The modernist manifesto is a public
declaration of artistic convictions,
relatively brief, often highly stylized or
epigrammatic in the mode of other forms
of modernist writing, and almost always
an aggressively self- conscious declaration
of artistic independence” (NAAL 335).

6. F. T. Marinetti Marinetti was a relatively obscure
Italian poet before publishing “The
Founding and Manifesto of
Futurism,” which “attracted an
international circle of artists and
writers into Marinetti’s orbit,
including painters, architects,
poets, sculptors, playwrights, and
film directors. Across all the arts,
futurism scorned traditional
standards of artistic beauty,
celebrated modern technologies
of speed, and aimed to shock
audiences” (NAAL 336).

7. 8. We stand on the last
promontory of the While many modernist writers
centuries! . . . Why depicted the modern world as
should we look back, an experience of loss, Marinetti
when what we want is to wholeheartedly embraced the
break down the idea that modern technology
mysterious doors of the
Impossible? Time and has ushered in a secular
Space died yesterday. We millennium.
already live in the
absolute, because we In this and other sections of his
have created eternal, manifesto, does Marinetti seem
omnipresent speed.
to be uncritically embracing the
—from Manifesto of advances of modern
Futurism technology?
F. T. Marinetti

8. 9. We will glorify war—the These two points from the
world’s only hygiene— Manifesto of Futurism represent
militarism, patriotism, the potentially troubling aspects of
destructive gesture of Marinetti’s worldview: his
freedom-bringers, beautiful celebration of war and his
ideas worth dying for, and denigration of women (he glorifies
scorn for woman. “scorn for woman” and promises to
“destroy . . .feminism”).
10. We will destroy the
museums, libraries, academies
How does this prowar, antiwoman
of every kind, will fight
moralism, feminism, every stance relate to Marinetti’s futurist
philosophy? Does it seem to be an
opportunistic or utilitarian
afterthought? Or are the
cowardice.
glorification of war and the
—
denigration of women integral to
from Manifesto of Futurism
Marinetti’s thinking?

9. Mina Loy Mina Loy was a self-described
feminist poet and writer, and, oddly
enough, the sexual partner of the
apparently antifeminist F. T.
Marinetti. She wrote (but did not
publish) her “Feminist Manifesto”
during her association with
Marinetti.
Does Loy’s manifesto read as a
response to Marinetti’s? As a
criticism of it? Are the two
manifestos written in a similar
form, or are there formal
differences as well as differences in
content?

10. Women . . . you are on One of most immediately noticeable
the eve of a devastating features of Loy’s manifesto is its
psychological upheaval— typography: She increases the font size at
all your pet illusions must strategic moments, underlines text, puts
be unmasked—the lies of letters in boldface, and employs irregular
centuries have got to go— capitalization. What is the effect of this?
Does Loy’s message of “Absolute
are you prepared for the Demolition” (rather than mere “Reform”)
Wrench—? There is no require that she radically alter the
half-measure—NO appearance of her text? That is, does the
scratching on the surface message of her text determine the form
of the rubbish heap of that it takes?
tradition, will bring about
Reform, the only method Loy’s militaristic language of demolition and
destruction recall Marinetti’s glorification of
is Absolute Demolition. war, but her profeminist message runs
entirely counter to Marinetti’s. How might
—from Feminist we account for this conflict?
Manifesto

11. Ezra Pound Pound was an American
expatriate living in Europe. He
was hugely influential in the
circle of other expatriate
writers and artists not only for
his own work as a poet but also
for the advice that he offered
to other writers. “A
Retrospect” is Pound’s
manifesto on Imagism, a school
of poetry that argued for the
central—if not defining—place
of the image in modern poetry.

12. • An “Image” is that which
presents an intellectual and Is Ezra Pound offering a
emotional complex in an radical new vision of
instant of time. poetry, or are his
• It is better to present one comments simply good
Image in a lifetime than to advice for writers of any
produce voluminous works. kind?
• Use no superfluous word,
no adjective which does What do you find radical in
not reveal something. Pound’s approach as laid
— out in “A Retrospect”?
from “A Retrospect”

13. In a Station of the Metro
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
One of Pound’s most famous Imagist poems is “In a Station of the
Metro.” Does he practice what he preaches in “A Retrospect” in
this poem?
After reading this poem, are you inclined to think differently about
the advice Pound offers in “A Retrospect”?
After reading an Imagist poem, do you think that “A Retrospect” is
offering something more than just general advice for writers?

14. Willa Cather Willa Cather was born in the
Midwest but spent most of
her career as a novelist in
cosmopolitan cities such as
London and New York. In “The
Novel Démeublé,” Cather
implicitly asks what
nineteenth-century novelists
can teach twentieth-century
writers. In so doing, she
rejects realist novels as mere
“amusement” and looks to
“American romances” such as
Hawthorne’s The Scarlet
Letter for inspiration.

15. There are hopeful signs that The realist literature of an
some of the younger writers earlier tradition was committed
are trying to break away to the “verisimilitude” that
from mere verisimilitude, Cather here rejects. What is
and, following the
Cather offering in the place of
development of modern
painting, to interpret verisimilitude?
imaginatively the material
and social investiture of their What does it mean “to
characters; to present their interpret imaginatively” and
scene by suggestion rather “to present . . . by suggestion
than by enumeration. rather than by enumeration”?
—from
“The Novel Démeublé”

17. William Carlos
Williams
So far, all of the manifestos
that we have read are serious
invectives. Yet, here we
encounter the playfulness in
Williams’s Spring and All.
Given the playful, ironic, and
humorous tone of Williams’s
manifesto, it may be difficult
to tell how deadly serious he
is about his vision for modern
poetry.

18. It is spring! but miracle of
miracles a miraculous The language from Spring and
miracle has gradually All invokes both the creation
taken place during these story in the book of Genesis
seemingly wasted eons. and the theory of evolution.
Through the orderly Why does Williams do this?
sequences of
unmentionable time And how does he make both
EVOLUTION HAS religion and science serve “the
REPEATED ITSELF FROM meaning of ‘art’”?
THE BEGINNING.
—from Spring and All

19. Langston
Hughes
Many modernist writers supported
the idea that artists and writers
should be fiercely committed to
their personal vision regardless of
what the market, critics, or other
writers said. In “The Negro Artist
and the Racial Mountain,” Langston
Hughes argues that an artist’s racial
identity complicates this
commitment to personal vision in
ways that white writers had not
fully appreciated.

20. There’s a tension in the statement
I am ashamed for the between individual choice (“An artist must
black poet who says, “I be free to choose what he does”) and a
want to be a poet, not a manifesto-like prescription of what
Negro poet,” as though African-American poets must do (“I am
his own racial world
were not as interesting ashamed for the black poet who says . . .”).
as any other world . . .
An artist must be free How does Hughes encourage black writers
to choose what he to embrace their heritage without telling
does, certainly, but he the that they must write in a certain way
must also never be
afraid to do what he to be considered successful writers?
might choose.
In what way is this essay not about art at
—from “The Negro all, but about racism and the self-hatred
Artist and that it breeds in an oppressed population?
the Racial
Mountain”

21. Author: Susan Glaspell
On July 1, 1882, Susan Glaspell
was born in Davenport, Iowa. She
excelled in academics as a
student, studying Latin and
journalism. After graduation from
high school, she worked as a
newspaper reporter for the
Davenport Morning Republican,
then as the society editor for the
Weekly Outlook. From 1897-1899
she attended Drake University and
received a Ph.D. in Philosophy.

22. At the time of her death in 1948,
she had written fifty short stories,
nine novels, and fourteen plays;
most of these works feature strong
female protagonists and stories
that focus on the experiences of
women. Perhaps not surprisingly,
her work faded from public interest
during the conservative1950s, and
practically disappeared from
bookshelves and the stages of
amateur theatres. Yet in the past
few decades, her work is being
reexamined and celebrated by a
new group of critics and
audiences.

23. Homework
Read Trifles (1916) pp. 252-262
Post # 3 In literature, a symbol is something that
represents something else, and is often used to
communicate deeper levels of meaning. What is
one important symbol in Trifles? How does Glaspell
use it to propel the plot and convey deeper levels of
meaning about her characters or themes??
Or QHQ Trifles