A Study On The Modernist Literary Techniques In American Small Town Literature In The Early Twentieth Century

American small town literature can be traced back to Washington Irving. Beginning from the third quarter of the eighteenth century, there appeared many native small town literary pieces. From Washington Irving (1783-1859) to the latterly celebrated John Updike (1932), almost every writer has delineated the small town life in his first or best work.American small town literature in the early twentieth century can be best represented by works like: Spoon River Anthology written by Edgar Lee Master, Wines burg,Ohio by Sherwood Anderson, and Our Town by Thornton Wilder. Edgar Lee Masters firstly began his small town poems with modernistic techniques, Sherwood Anderson later was greatly influenced by masters'literature, and he used many modernistic techniques in his famous novels, and he also exert great influences on later writers, and he was even called"Father of our writers".Modernist techniques mainly include the techniques of symbolism, expressionism, absurdity, stream of consciousness and so on. The three writers mentioned above chiefly adopted the theory of psychoanalysis and expressionism respectively, and thus start the era of modernism in American small town literature.The three writers mentioned above have already been studied many times by researchers, critics, and experts both at home and abroad. Researchers and scholars who were interested in Winesburg,Ohio mainly chose the point of feminism, grotesque, small town complex, literary and social values and modernism in the novel. Except for these, there are hardly any people studied Spoon River Anthology, and Thornton Wilder's Our Town. In a word, the current researches on the three writers are lack of a systematic overview to regard them as a whole modern small town writer. This paper, from the perspective of modernism, systematically study the common features those works of American small town literature share and their respective characteristics under the shock of modern philosophy and industrialization.This paper, by using the inductive, deductive and comparative methods, and from the perspective of modernism, showed that Spoon River Anthology written by Edgar Lee Masters, Wines burg,Ohio by Sherwood Anderson, and Our Town by Thornton Wilder adopted the theory of psychoanalysis and expressionism respectively, which are the major features of modernism under the shock of modern philosophy and industrialization, and thus began the era of modernism in American small town literature. Speaking in detail, in Spoon River Anthology, Masters adopted the theory of'id',"ego"and"superego", the theory of"Libido"and the theory of"Sex as Instinct"to express his own interpretation of the early twientith century small town literature. Similarly, Anderson used the theory of"Grotesque", the theory of"Libido"and conflict between"Id"and"Superego"to show us a real picture of American small town literature in the same period. And Wilder chose another typical modernist feature—expressionism to enrich the modernist features in the systematic series of early 20th century American small town literature. To sum up, literature is a means of reflection of society. In the particular period of time, that is early 20th century, the three writers mentioned above began to write small town literature by using creative modernist techniques when faced with the shock of the transformation of culture shock of modern philosophy and industrialization.This paper also has its realistic significance. China, as a country which is undergoing the transformation from an agricultural country to a modern industrial country, is just in the similar period as Americans in the early twentieth century. After studying the American small town literature in the early twentieth century, we can learn many lessons from it, and then, we can absorb the essence while deserting the badness according to the current situation of our country to better construct our country especially our towns and villages.