| A | B |
| Modern Era | 1900-1945 |
| lost generation | Gertrude Stein's description of postwar writers like Ernest Hemingway |
| regionalism | pre-war writing that described traditional life in different parts of the U.S. |
| Jazz Age | period during the 1920s when younger and older generations clashed |
| Great Depression | period of financial collapse |
| expatriates | Americans living abroad |
| Modernism | rejection of artistic conventions of the past; represented breakdown of culture |
| subjectivism | reality depends on the point of view of the observer |
| irony | words meaning the opposite of their usual meaning |
| Harlem Renaissance | creative surge among black artists, writers, performers, and literature around 1920 |