Lengua Inglesa - Bachillerato: October 2014

2^nd BACHILLERATO: READING FOR PLEASURE

If it ever occurs to you to read "The Great Gatsby", by F. Scott Fitzgerald - or even watch any of the two film versions - you will find that the following background notes and videos as well as the links to the film trailers are particularly useful.

· The Roaring Twenties is a term sometimes used to refer to the 1920s, characterizing the decade's distinctive cultural edge in New York City, Paris, Berlin, London, and many other major cities during a period of sustained economic prosperity. French speakers called it the "années folles" ("Crazy Years"),emphasizing the era's social, artistic, and cultural dynamism. Normality returned to politics in the wake of hyper-emotional patriotism during World War I, jazz music blossomed, the flapper redefined modern womanhood, and Art Deco peaked. Economically, the era saw the large-scale diffusion and use of automobiles, telephones, motion pictures, and electricity, unprecedented industrial growth, accelerated consumer demand and aspirations, and significant changes in lifestyle and culture. The media focused on celebrities, especially sports heroes and movie stars, as cities rooted for their home team and filled the new palatial cinemas and gigantic stadiums. In most major countries women were given the right to vote for the first time. Finally the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ended the era, as the Great Depression set in worldwide, bringing years of worldwide gloom and hardship. The social and cultural features known as the Roaring Twenties began in leading metropolitan centers, especially Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, Paris and London, then spread widely in the aftermath of World War I. By the middle of the decade, prosperity was widespread, with the second half of the decade later becoming known as the "Golden Twenties". The spirit of the Roaring Twenties was marked by a general feeling of discontinuity associated with modernity and a break with traditions. Everything seemed to be feasible through modern technology. New technologies, especially automobiles, moving pictures and radio extended 'modernity' to a large part of the population. Formal decorative frills were shed in favor of practicality in both daily life and architecture. At the same time, jazz and dancing rose in popularity, in opposition to the mood of the specter of World War I. As such, the period is also often referred to as the Jazz Age.

· Flappers were a "new breed" of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behaviour. Flappers were seen as brash for wearing excessive makeup, drinking, treating sex in a casual manner, smoking, driving automobiles and otherwise flouting social norms. Flappers had their origins in the liberal period of the Roaring Twenties, the social, political turbulence and increased transatlantic cultural exchange that followed the end of World War I, as well as the export of American jazz culture to Europe.

Click HERE ("The Roaring Twenties")

Click HERE ("The Roaring 20´s: US History")

Click HERE ("Dance Craze")

· Art Deco is an influential visual arts design style which first appeared in France during the 1920s, flourished internationally during the 30s and 40s, then waned in the post-World War II era. It is an eclectic style that combines traditional craft motifs with Machine Age imagery and materials. The style is often characterized by rich colors, bold geometric shapes, and lavish ornamentation. Deco emerged from the Interwar period when rapid industrialization was transforming culture. One of its major attributes is an embrace of technology. Art Deco can be defined as an assertively modern style that ran to symmetry rather than asymmetry, and to the rectilinear rather than the curvilinear; it responded to the demands of the machine and of new material and the requirements of mass production. During its heyday Art Deco represented luxury, glamour, exuberance, and faith in social and technological progress.

Chrysler Building spire, Manhattan

A crowd gathers outside the Stock Exchange after the crash (New York)

· The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as Black Tuesday and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, began in late October 1929 and was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, when taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout. The crash signaled the beginning of the 10-year Great Depression that affected all Western industrialized countries and did not end in the United States until the onset of American mobilization for World War II at the end of 1941. 15 million people had unemployment coming to them after the banks crashed.

· The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in 1930 and lasted until the late 1930s or middle 1940s. It was the longest, most widespread, and deepest depression of the 20th century. The depression originated in the U.S., after the fall in stock prices that began around September 4, 1929, and became worldwide news with the stock market crash of October 29, 1929.The Great Depression had devastating effects in countries rich and poor. Personal income, tax revenue, profits and prices dropped, while international trade plunged by more than 50%. Unemployment in the U.S. rose to 25%, and in some countries rose as high as 33%. Cities all around the world were hit hard, especially those dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries. Farming and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by approximately 60%. Some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s. In many countries, the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the end of World War II.

· F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 – 1940) was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" (the generation that came of age during World War I, including distinguished artists such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, T. S. Eliot, John Dos Passos, and Isadora Duncan). He finished four novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night. The Great Gatsby has been the basis for numerous films of the same name. Paris in the 1920s proved the most influential decade of Fitzgerald's development. The Great Gatsby, considered his masterpiece, was published in 1925. Fitzgerald made several excursions to Europe, mostly Paris and the French Riviera, and became friends with many members of the American expatriate community in Paris, notably Ernest Hemingway. Although Fitzgerald's passion lay in writing novels, only his first novel sold well enough to support the opulent lifestyle that he and Zelda, her wife, adopted as New York celebrities. Because of this lifestyle, as well as the bills from Zelda's medical care when they came, Fitzgerald was constantly in financial trouble and often required loans. Fitzgerald had been an alcoholic since his college days, and became notorious during the 1920s for his extraordinarily heavy drinking, leaving him in poor health by the late 1930s.