Post World War 2 Literature

Study Prose Post-World War II using Online Video

With this title, you'll examine the poetry and prose published during the 40-year period that followed World War II. Use our 2 online educational video titles to examine American prose and poetry published during the 40-year period following World War II. Writers discussed include Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison, Joseph Heller, Norman Mailer, J.D. Salinger, and John Updike.

Learning Objectives:

• Survey American prose and poetry published during the forty-year period following World War II, and examine how accelerating technological changes and an increasing public advocacy of human rights and social responsibility shaped these literary works.
• Discuss how literary works combining both fictional material and accounts of personal experiences and other factual data, such as those by Norman Mailer, reflect a focus on realism and the relationship between an individual and society.
• Explain how the outcome of World War II affected the sensibilities of American writers and artists, fully examining the implications of America's new, post-war image.
• Gain insight to themes explored by pre-eminent novelists, playwrights, and poets of this period, and understand how works by minorities challenged traditional views.

• Literature > The History Of American Literature > Power And Alienation And Into The Eighties
• Power and Alienation (Runtime: 19:37)
• Into The Eighties (Runtime: 22:42)