美国文学简史（十九）

Novels in the 1920s
I. F. Scott FitzgeraldII. Ernest HemingwayII. Sinclair Lewis – “the worst important writer in American literature”IV. Willa Cather

美国文学简史之 Ernest Hemingway

Point of View 

(influenced by experience in war)

(1) He felt that WWI had broken America’s culture and traditions, and separated fromits roots. He wrote about men and women who were isolated from tradition,frightened, sometimes ridiculous, trying to find their own way.

(2) He condemned war as purposeless slaughter, but the attitudechanged when he took part in Spanish Civil War when he found that fascism（法西斯主义） was a cause worth fighting for.

(3) He wrote about courage and  in battlefield. He defined courage as “an instinctive movement towards or away fromthe centre of violence with self-preservation and self-respect, the mixedmotive”. He also talked about the courage with which toface tragedies of life that can never be remedied.

(4) Hemingway is essentially a negative writer. It is verydifficult for him to say “yes”. He holds a black, naturalistic view of the world and sees it as “all a nothing” and “allnada”.

 Works

Men Without Women《没有女人的男人》The Sun Also Rises《太阳照常升起》A Farewell to Arms《永别了，武器》The Old Man and the Sea《老人与海》

Themes – “grace under pressure”

(1) War and influence of war on people, with scenes connected with hunting, bull fighting which demand stamina and courage, and with the question “how to live with pain”, “how human being live gracefully under pressure”.
(2) “code hero”（硬汉形象）The Hemingway hero is an average man of decidedly masculine tastes, sensitive and intelligent, a man of action, and one of few words. That is an individualist keeping emotions under control, stoic and self-disciplined in a dreadful place. These people are usually spiritual strong, people of certain skills, and most of them encounter death many times.

 Style

(1) simple and natural(2) direct, clear and fresh(3) lean and economical(4) simple, conversational, common found, fundamental words(5) Iceberg principle: understatement, implied things(7) Symbolism

本文为节选，来源：沪江英语

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