Ernest Hemingway

Style Deceptively simple, rhythmic prose Depicts moments of action and rapid, terse dialogue Characters quietly stand up to the pain of life

2 major contributions to American literature other than style… Vision of life both as a kind of perpetual battlefield where everyone is eventually wounded and as a game with almost formal moves. “Hemingway hero”---a man for whom it is a point of honor to suffer with grace and dignity, and who, though sensing that defeat is inevitable, plays the game well.

War’s influence Wanted to join WWI, but was rejected b/c of eye injury Later joined the Red Cross ambulance corps and sent to Italian front Severely wounded by artillery shell and recovered for 3 months in hospital in Milan This injury proved significant to his works, as he began to consider ways man can be wounded in peacetime as well as on a battlefield.

Video Clips American Masters on PBS---Commentary from variety of sources on Hemingway (free Real Player needed) Ann Douglas Sandra Spanier Valerie Hemingway Interview with Hemingway’s son Biography on Hemingway---Wrestling with Life Hemingway House---Key West, FL

Significant works In Our Time---1925; collection of short stories; 1st to reach general audience The Sun Also Rises---created wide audience base ---This novel, about a group of expatriates looking for sensations that would allow them to forget about pain of living life, gave a new phrase to describe those disillusioned with war’s ideals: “the lost generation”

A Farewell to Arms---about war and romance growing out of it. For Whom the Bell Tolls---Hemingway was regarded as the original hero of his works (Robert Jordan). This book concentrated not on the ordeals of personal existence, but rather emphasized individual fate and the lot of humanity The Old Man and the Sea---return to old theme of testing the individual and man’s acceptance of his fate.

Nobel Prize for Literature-1954 Died in 1961 of self-inflicted gun shot wound