Confessional Poetry: The second generation poets born from 1920 to 1935 were under the influence of New critical mode, but they were less burdened by the legacies of the great modernists. So some poets of this generation stuck to the New critical mode, but some poets developed a new style in poetry called confessional mode. This confessional movement started with the works of Robert Lowell and John Berryman followed W.D. Snodgrass, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. These poets were against the new critical mode of writing poetry that emphasized on aloofness and impersonality. These confessional poets gave expression to painful personal events through the revelation of personal intimacies and unembarrassed self- exposure. In this sense by writing such poems based on their own private experience, the confessional poets reflect the liveliest period; but such private experiences were all about pains and sufferings.

    The expression of personal pain is the hallmark of confessional poetry. Moreover all the major figures of this group also suffered from several personal difficulties like destructive family relationship, traumatic childhoods, broken marriages, reasoning mental breakdowns, alcoholism, and drug abuse and so on. Most of the poets of this group were also widely affected by psychological disorder and thus, they dealt with the theme of psychology as well. Like, in the case of Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath, we may also find Oedipus tension, sexual confessions and suicidal urges as the subject matter in their work.

The most common subject matter in the confession poetries is the madness. So these confessional poets are also known as ideocentric group of poets. The remarkable example of the confessional poetry is the work of Sylvia Plath, who is highly influenced by Anne Sexton. In her works, she not only dealt with her personal problems, but through those problems she brings out the social problems of her times. Plath brought forth a sense of abandonment, guilt, emotional breakdown and suicidal attempt along with the use of fierce rhythm and violent images. Her most appreciated work in this respect is Ariel.

Beat Poets :In the later half of the 1950s a group of poets like Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Jack Kerovac, Gregory Corso etc formed a group of young rebels called Beat poet and thus, young rebels developed the Beat Generation. The Beat Generation is a group of writers centered in San Francisco and New York City in the later half of the 1950s. The poet of this generation called themselves beat because they felt themselves to be very much beaten. Read More...

The Black Art Movement :This is a new movement which came to be institutionalized in the sixties and seventies. It was a radical separatist ethnicism proposing to disengage itself not only from the larger world of American literature but also from the western (white) tradition. Read More...

Black Drama: After the end of Second World War the Negro writer did not paid so much attention to fiction as much they motivated to poetry and Drama. Drama became the easiest form to reflect the pain and suffering. Read More...

Broadway Theaters: Broadway theaters are highly commercialized and established theatres, especially situated on Manhattam. There theatres are especially situated in Manhattam. There theatres are musical as well as they were powerful sources of entertainment on 1920s and 1930s. Read More...

Off Broadway: Off Broadway came on 1940s as a reaction against costly and commercialized Broadway theatres. This theater has stage on center and audience could watch the performance from all corners. During the 1940s, there was the heyday of this theatre; it was highly popular during that time. But till 1960s there remained no fundamental differences between Broadway and off Broadway, it became more commercialized as Broadway. Read More...

Harlem Renaissance: Harlem Renaissance is a cultural moment of Afro- American people during 1920s. It was concentrated on New York City’s Harlem so it is called Harlem. It is also called as New Negro Renaissance, New Negro movement. It affected different fields like art, literature, politics etc. Read More...

Arthur Miller: Miller belongs to the second half of the twentieth century. Miller was leftist and being leftist he starts his dramatic career with the propaganda plays. In his propaganda plays he explicitly overthrows capitalism and advocates for the establishment of socialism. Miller is influenced by Marxism. His propaganda plays are not published until the publication of Death of a Salesman in 1949. In his later plays after propaganda plays he implicitly advocate Marxism. Read More...

Eugene O’ Neill: Eugene O’ Neill, an American dramatist, who is internationally reputed in the field of drama, also got the noble prize in 1936. He was influenced by Henric Ibsen, August Strindberg and Maurice Maeterlinck. He is remembered for realist, naturalist and expressionist drama. Moreover the credit goes to Eugene O’Neill for his realist and naturalistic play. Before O’Neill in American theater, there were melodrama which were sentimental and having the sense of excitement. Read More...

Tennesse Williams:  If Eugene O’ Neill, Susan Gospel, Thornton Wilder Clifford Odets dominated the first half of the twentieth century. Arthur Miller, Edward Albee, Lawrance Hensbery, Sam Shepard, David Moment dominated the second half of the twentieth century, but Tennessee Williams is very much important between this two ages . Tennesse Williams was brought up in the South, we can clearly see element of the southern literary tradition in his work. Read More...