American Modernist Literature
American modernist artists became most concerned with content and subject matter. They tried to find new ways to express their feelings and views. To illustrate, The Great Gatsby is considered as a huge triumph of style over content. Although the novel itself is about tragedy and loss which left a very depressed feeling at the end, the reader feels quite the opposite. In other words, Fitzgerald's writing brought pleasure despite his depressing subject matter. The Great Gatsby is seen thus to represent the demoralization of American society and the end of innocence in American thought.
The American Modernism benefited from the diversity of immigrant cultures. Artists were inspired by African, Caribbean, Asian and European folk cultures and integrated these exotic styles into their works. To illustrate, there are some African American novelists who integrated aestheticism for art's sake, some added aspects of Blues and Jazz music as a medium to reveal their hidden emotions. There are some other novelists who dealt within their literary works with contemporary issues as feminism and others who added a political dimension to their literary writings.