Searching For Perspective

Hemingway and American Writers in Paris

The Great War

DEAD10 million combatants

7 million civilians

At Home

CensorshipLiterature

ArtCinema

Political Discourse

RacismAfrican Americans

Chinese/Japanese AmericansNative Americans

Jews

The Result?

Anomie

Something gone wrong with the Enlightenment

Reason seemed in doubt

Cultural norms were being challenged in Europe

The Arts

Patronage restricted

Showings/publication/readings limited

Limited ability to learn the various artistic skills

Inability to subsist while learning

The Solution?

Expatriatism - moving to another country

Paris – 1920s, 1950s to 1960s

London – early 20th century

Prague – 1980s to today

Vienna – today

What Was Needed

Community of other writers

Mentors

Libraries/ book stores

Places to meet

Inexpensive, available food

Cheap living space

American Writers Living in Paris

Ezra Pound Kay Boyle

Scott Fitzgerald H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)

John Dos Passos

Gertrude Stein

Sherwood Anderson

Henry Miller

Djuna Barnes

Archibald MacLeish

Others in the Paris Community

Samuel Beckett

Anais Nin

Gerald and Sara Murphy

Lawrence Durell

Ford Madox Ford

Pablo Picasso

Ernest Hemingway

Volunteered for the army in 1917

Served in Italy – handled maimed bodies

Wounded in 1918 – heroically saved a man’s life

Returned to the U.S. (age 19), bored with “normal life.” Married, took wife and son to Paris in 1921

Blurred lines between fiction/nonfiction/journalism

John Dos Passos

Harvard Graduate

Volunteered for the ambulance corps in 1917

Remained in Paris after the war, studied at the Sorbonne

Became a “social revolutionary.”

Manhattan Transfer/ USA/stream of consciousness

H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)

Poet, novelist, memoirist

Moved to London in 1911 – Imagist movement

Mentored by Ezra Pound

WWI - lost brother and marriage

Bisexual – championed gay rights/feminism

Magna Graeca novels influenced by Freud

Djuna Barnes

Born in log cabin in NY

Grandmother Zadel Barnes Women’s suffragist activist

Bohemian community in Greenwich Village

Journalist influenced by James Joyce

Went to Paris in 1920

Ryder- novel of a polygamous household

Scott Fitzgerald

First published story at age 13

Graduated from Princeton

The Great Gatsby/1925

Made excursions to Paris with Zelda

Trouble writing (alcoholism)

Hemingway befriended him

The Lost Generation

Hemingway the chronicler/voice of the “Lost Generation.”

The Sun Also Rises

A Moveable Feast

The “Pilot Fish” analogy

“Never any ending to Paris.”