ART IN JAZZ AGE

Masculine women, Feminine men

Which is the rooster, which is the hen?

It's hard to tell 'em apart today! And, say!

Sister is busy learning to shave,

Brother just loves his permanent wave,

It's hard to tell 'em apart today! Hey, hey!

Girls were girls and boys were boys when I was a tot,

Now we don't know who is who, or even what's what!

Knickers and trousers, baggy and wide,

Nobody knows who's walking inside,

Those masculine women and feminine men!

They are the lyrics of a song which was written by several composers during jazz age period. It may be not so important for us; however it is useful for us to understand the change in society during jazz age period. It was a period which a lot of cultural changes occurred. Acceptance of homosexuals was one of the changes. It was a positive change, but naturally it took some time. Jazz Age also was a period of literary creativity, and a time to several excellent works of several authors to appear.

D.H. Lawrence was one of these authors. His novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover was a scandal due to including sexual themes and its evident description of sex. David Herbert Lawrence was born on 11th September 1885. He was a product of an unhappy marriage. His father was a coal-miner and mother was a teacher. During his hard childhood, he became deeply attached to his mother who was helping him to escape from the working class. His hometown was a mining village in Nottinghamshire and the main working area was mining. However, he was not happy with mining and moreover he developed his hostility toward the mining industry, because he was thinking that it dehumanized his father and destroyed the countryside. That was how fulmination against industrialism and modern technology which we also see in his novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover occurs. Another effect on his ideas was his relation with his lover. It was the first time he rejected conventional morality when he eloped with his mistress. It both ruined his marriage and became an inspiration to write Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

Connie is the female protagonist of the novel. She is from a middle-class family and introduced us to love affairs. When she was 23, she marries to a man, an aristocrat who is called Clifford. Just after the honey moon he is sent to the war. After the war Clifford becomes a good writer and his life totally changes. Connie starts feel isolated and longs for real human contact and has affair with a playwright, Michalis. Clifford’s meaningless aim to be successful and obsession with coal-mining estrange them more. Then, Connie meets with another man, Oliver whom she feels close and has sex several times. Later on she notices she is pregnant and decides to live with Oliver. However, Oliver is married too and his wife notices their relation. The novel ends with Oliver working on a farm and Connie living with her sister and waiting with hope...

The Great Gatsby’s writer Scott Fitzgerald was the most representative writer of the Jazz Age. His novel, the Great Gatsby is maybe the best art of work which shows the Jazz Age society. Some of his books The Beautiful Damned and The Short Story Collection are another work which deals with that era. Due to his effective novels he is also called as “the founder of the Jazz Age”. Growing of individualism and the change in the values of the society were the main themes that were examined and introduced by Fitzgerald. As well as introducing the new society, he tried to criticize the society by showing the loss ethical values.

GENERAL

And how! : I strongly agree!

Attaboy/Attagirl! : You go, boyfriend/girfriend!

Cat's meow : great ("This deal is the cat's meow!" Can also use "the cat's pyjamas" or "the bee's knees")

Jake : great, ie. "Everything's Jake."

Know one's onions: to know one's business or what one is talking about

Peachy keen: super-fine and amazing

Ritzy: Glam, good, special. "Putting on the Ritz." "Oh my, she sure looks ritzy."

Real McCoy: a genuine item

Sand, grit, moxy : good stuff. Balls. Gumption. Eg. 'Hey baby, you've got sand/grit/moxy'

You slay me!: That's funny!

JAZZ AGE UNDERGROUND MUSIC

Daddy-o : a way of addressing pretty much anyone, especially if they're a guy. Was initially only used by black people, until white people caught the bug.

Get Hot! Get Hot! : encouragement for a hot dancer doing her thing

Lollapalooza : a humdinger, a really special thing (Ha! Even the ultimate indie-rawk music fest rates jazz age slang!)

JAZZ AGE DRINKING

Panther sweat: whisky

Screaming meemies: the shakes

JAZZ AGE WOMEN

Baby vamp : a hot young woman

Barn burner : a classy, stylish woman

Bearcat : a hot: blooded, fiery girl

Bug-eyed Betty : unattractive girl, minger

Choice bit of calico : attractive female, usually young, usually a student

Dumb Dora : an absolute idiot, a dumbbell, especially a woman

Glad rags: 'going out on the town' clothes

Munitions: face powder

JAZZ AGE MEN

Hard-boiled : tough, as in a tough guy: "He sure is hard-boiled"

JAZZ AGE POVERTY

Heavy sugar : a lot of money

POETRY

               Poetry just like music has been always popular in the states. Their similarity became more evident in the 1920s. With the beginnig of the jazz age just like the society and the values, poetry started to evolve. Poets like Ezra Pound, T.S. Elliot, Carl Sandburg, and E.E. Cummings started to write poems in different sytles and American poetic thought moved away from formality and conventional sytle. With the evolution of jazz music in the early twentieth century, music and poetry merged and new genre occured. THE JAZZ POETRY.

               There were big arguments about the definiton of the jazz poetry. Some claims that the earlist poets called as “jazz poets” simply were only infulenced by jazz music and they were not true “jazz poets”. And similarly some claims that jazz poetry must immitate jazz music in its rhythm and sttle. So two different genres occured. “Jazz related poetry” and “Jazz Poetry”. The first poets who used the jazz music, figures, or culture were Vachel Lindsay, Carl Sandburg, Mina Loy, and Hart Crane.  The poems composed by poets are "jazz-related" works, due to the fact that their poems do not embody the music of the Jazz Age. 

               HUGES

                    Langston Hughes was the first true jazz poet. He was discovered by another poet Lindsay who professed great disdain for the same music that Hughes incorporated into his poetry. Huges wrote many essays defending jazz music as an important form od music and claimed that jazz was not to be treated as seriously as classical music. He published several essays on this matter and became one of the leading figures of harlem reneissance.