ERNEST H

EMINGWAY

& THE L

OST

GENERATI

ON AUTHORS

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“I was born wandering between two worlds, one dead, the other powerless to be born, and have made, in a curious way, the worst of both”

Aldous HuxleyBorn 26 July 1894Died 22 November 1963

LOST GENERATION WRITERSLostValue-lessAngryCynicalGenerationWWIExpatriation 1920sDepression

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cMOWzZflgE

MAJOR WRITERSErnest HeminwayF. Scott Fitzgeralde.e. cummingsT.S. EliotGertrude SteinJohn Dos PassosWilliam Carlos Williams

MAJOR ARTISTS

Pablo PicassoGeorges BraquesMarc ChagallJuan Gris

GEORGES BRAQUES VIOLIN AND CANDLESTICK

PICASSO WOMAN READING A BOOK

CHAGALL

JUAN GRIS STILL LIVES

WHY ARE THEY LOST?Gertrude Stein was the first to use the

phrase after having read a draft of Hemingway's The Sun also Rises. Stein, and American ex-patriate living in Paris, was Hemingway's mentor and friend. He recounted that Stein said:

“That is what you are. That's what you all are...all of you young people who served in the war. You are a lost generation.”

MODERNISMLiterature can be grouped not only by genre, but also

by era:• Romanticism: Emerson, Hawthorne, Poe, Whitman

(celebration of the individual and elevation of nature)

• Realism: Sinclair (realistic portrayal of every day lives)

• Naturalism: London (Nature becomes a character and mimics the violent nature of man)

• Modernism: Hemingway (see next slide)• Post-modernism: Kesey, Vonnegut, Tim O’Brien

MODERNISMThe modern period is considered to be between 1914

and 1965—the period that began when WWI blasted the past and history into apparent oblivion: “The past was dead. God was dead. People were alienated from all community. One could create one’s self only by existing . . .” (Harper Handbook 295).

The modern period in writing began with existentialism, was furthered by cubism, and ended in the psychedelic culture of drugs, free love, and the Vietnam war—which is the subject of our next novel, The Things They Carried.

• Disillusioned with American ideals

• “Grace under pressure”• Must confront death to

assure life.• There is no life after

death; we have one life to live. “When you’re dead, you’re dead.”

• Men cannot act cowardly in the face of such certainty: he drinks, cavorts, and generally puts himself to the test, physically and mentally: bullfighting, boxing, hunting big game.

• In the face of death, a man must enjoy and take the most from life.

THE HEMINGWAY HERO

HEMINGWAY’S STYLENo author has influenced American writing as much as

Hemingway. His short declarative sentences stem from his time as a journalist for the Kansas City Star in 1917. He was told by his editor to omit all adjectives and adverbs, and he said that it was the best advice he ever received as a writer. But Hemingway didn’t just leave out adjectives and adverbs:

“In a preface written in 1959 for a selection of his stories . . . , Hemingway congratulated himself for his skill at leaving things out. In his story ‘The Killer,’ he had left out Chicago; in ‘Big Two-Hearted River,’ the war” (“The Art of the Short Story” 100).

What Hemingway reveals on the surface is only the tip of the story. His unstated message lies beneath and occupies a much larger role.

THE ICEBERG

HEMINGWAY'S PLACE IN LITERARY HISTORYPulitzer Prize in fiction in 1953

for Old Man and the Sea.Nobel Prize for literature in 1954Works of Fiction:• The Torrents of Spring (1925) • The Sun Also Rises (1926)• A Farewell to Arms (1929)• To Have and Have Not(1937)• For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)• Across the River and Into the

Trees (1950)

• The Old Man and the Sea (1952) • Adventures of a Young Man (1962) • Islands in the Stream (1970)• The Garden of Eden (1986)

WORKS OF NON-FICTIONDeath in the Afternoon (1932)Green Hills of Africa (1935)The Dangerous Summer (1960) A Moveable Feast (1964)

Nine anthologies of short stories . . .

IN OUR TIMEHemingway published a book of short stories in 1925 entitled

In Our Time.• Benjamin Disraeli, upon returning from the Congress of

Berlin in 1878 stated, "I have returned from Germany with peace in our time,” which is ironic , as the German occupation of the Sudetenland began on the following day.

• The phrase "peace for our time" was said on 30 September 1938 by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in his speech concerning the Munich Agreement and the Anglo-German Declaration. Less than a year after the agreement, Europe was plunged into World War II.

• "Give peace in our time, O Lord“ is a prayer from The Anglican Book of Common Prayer.

“Soldier’s Home” and “Big-Two Hearted River” are from In Our Time. “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” and “In Another Country” are from The Snows of Kilimanjaro.

HEMINGWAY’S WISDOM VIA WOODY ALLENhttp://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=midnight+in+paris+scene+with+ernest+hemingway&oq=midnight+in+paris+scene+with+ernest+he&aq=0w&aqi=q-w1&aql=&gs_nf=1&gs_l=youtube.12.0.33i21.117.10476.0.15339.29.29.2.3.3.2.217.2783.7j16j1.24.0

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