The Lost Generation

Defined byDefined by:the generation of young people who

came of age during and shortly after World War I, also known as the WWI generation

the feeling of disillusionment of American writers living in Europe (especially Paris) during WWI to WWII

“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.”— Gertrude Stein

-In A Moveable Feast, Hemingway reveals that the phrase was actually originated by the garage owner who serviced Stein's car. When a young mechanic failed to repair the car in a way satisfactory to Stein, the owner shouted at her, "You are all a generation perdu.“

-Stein, in telling Hemingway the story, added, "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." This generation included distinguished artists such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, T. S. Eliot, John Dos Passos, Waldo Peirce, Alan Seeger, and Erich Maria Remarque.

Some Key Writers of the Lost Generation

Ernest Hemingway*F. Scott Fitzgerald*John Dos Passos* E.E. Cummings*Gertrude Stein*Ford Maddox FordSylvia Beach

Archibald MacLeishEzra Pound*Sherwood AndersonJames Joyce*Zelda Fitzgerald*John SteinbeckWilliam Carlos Williams

Modernism: The writers/artists among the “lost generation”

have become synonymous with “Modernism” (“modernist” movement)

Refers to the radical shift in aesthetic and cultural sensibilities evident in the art and literature of the post-World War One period.

Intellectuals and artists believed the previous generation’s way of doing things was culturally bankrupt, so one of the key characteristics of Modernist works was to completely break with tradition.

Long-held conventions would be replaced by elements such as:

- the “unreliable” narrator

- stream-of-consciousness

- the disruption of narrative coherence/plot

sequencing

- a preoccupation with the inner self

- alteration of what constitutes truth/reality

- Use of deceptive appearances to hide difficult truths

- Departure from frilly, ornamental language to a more direct style

Imagist:A contingent of modernist poets, (Pound, TS Elliott) known for:

-minimalist language

-a lessening of structural rules

-a direct, cold, almost mechanized

writing style

-poems often short, unrhymed

-line between poetry and prose

was often blurred

-no more preoccupations with

beauty and nature; subject matter

now limitless

Ernest Hemingway

•born on July 21, 1899 in Illinois.

•Hemingway first went to Paris in WWI as an ambulance driver at age 18

•November 1921, Hemingway went to Paris as a reporter where the whole of literature was being changed by the likes of Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein and Ford Maddox Ford.

•Traveled to Spain in 1937 to cover the Spanish Civil War for the North American Newspaper Alliance; also covered the Chinese-Japanese war in 1941

•1944-1946 Hemingway returned to Paris with the troops to report WW2.

•distinctive writing style had an enormous influence on 20th-century fiction. As a Modernist, he denounced ornamental language and was known for his sparse, blunt, utterly straight-forward writing style. He uses this ironically, however, as his characters often have hidden agendas.

•1954 won the Nobel Prize in Literature, and died on July 2, 1961 of self inflicted gunshot wounds.

Well-Known Works

( (1926) The Sun Also Rises(1929) A Farewell to Arms(1936) The Snows of Kilamanjaro(1940) For Whom the Bell Tolls( (1952) The Old Man and the Sea

-Hemingway was treated for depression and suicidal thoughts with electric shock therapy.

-According to Jefferey Meyers, Hemingway received "between 11 to 15 shock treatments that instead of helping him most certainly hastened his demise."

-One of the side effects of shock therapy is the loss of memory. Without his memory, Hemingway could no longer write, could no longer recall the facts and images he required to create his art.

-Hemingway spent the first half of 1961 fighting his depression and paranoia. On the morning of July 2, 1961 Hemingway shot himself in the head. It was little more than two weeks until his 62nd birthday.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Born September 24, 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Published This Side of Paradise on March 26, 1920, at 24 and became affluent almost overnight. A week later he married Zelda Sayre in New York.

Coined the term the Jazz Age “It was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess,

and it was an age of satire.”

In 1924-1926, Paris: Fitzgerald met Ernest Hemingway, then unknown outside the expatriate literary circle.

After his death in 1940 and between 1945 and 1950, his work gained respect and by 1960 he had achieved a secure place among America’s enduring writers.

The Great Gatsby examines the theme of aspiration in an American setting, defining the classic American novel.

Well-KnownWorks

NovelsThis Side of Paradise (1920)The Beautiful and Damned  (1922)The Great Gatsby (1925)Tender Is the Night (1934)

Short StoryFlappers and Philosophers (A Collection, 1920)The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (1921)Tales of the Jazz Age (A Collection, 1922)All the Sad Young Men (A Collection, 1926)

-Literary critics were reluctant to recognize Fitzgerald as a serious craftsman. His reputation as a drinker inspired the myth that he was an irresponsible writer; yet he was a painstaking reviser whose fiction went through layers of drafts.

-Fitzgerald’s clear, lyrical, colorful, witty style evoked the emotions associated with time and place. When critics objected to Fitzgerald’s concern with love and success, his response was: “But, my God! it was my material, and it was all I had to deal with.”

-The chief theme of Fitzgerald’s work is aspiration - the idealism he regarded as defining American character. Another major theme was mutability or loss.

-As a social historian, Fitzgerald became identified with the Jazz Age, a term he coined in “Echoes of the Jazz Age.”

Stein Joyce

Stream of Consciousness Writers…Gertrude Stein James Joyce

In 1903, Stein moved to Paris with her brother Leo and her partner Alice B. Toklas and stayed for 30 years

27 rue de Fleurus, soon became gathering spot for many young artists and writers including Henri Matisse, Ezra Pound, Pablo Picasso, Max Jacob, and Guillaume Apollinaire.

Was a passionate advocate for the "new" in art, her literary friendships grew to include writers as diverse as William Carlos Williams, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, and Ernest Hemingway.

It was to Hemingway that Stein coined the phrase "the lost generation" to describe the expatriate writers living abroad between the wars.

Joyce headed to Paris in 1920 at an invitation from Ezra Pound, supposedly for a week, but he ended up living there for the next twenty years.

considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century.

best known for Ulysses (1922) - a landmark work in which the episodes of Homer’s Odyssey are paralleled in an array of contrasting literary styles - and the stream of consciousness technique he perfected.

John Dos Passos

•Born January 14, 1869, in Chicago, Illinois

•American novelist and painter

•wrote forty-two novels, as well as poems, essays, and plays, and created more than 400 pieces of art.

•active in the campaign against the growth of fascism in Europe. And joined other literary figures such as Ernest Hemingway in supporting the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War.

• In a 1936 essay, Joe Sartre referred to Dos Passos as "the greatest writer of our time.”

• Passos died on September 28, 1970.

E.E.Cummings•Born on October 14, 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

• American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright.

•Wrote 3,000 poems, 2 autobiographical novels, 4 plays and several essays.

•Manipulates syntax and punctuation for stylistic purposes

•His poetry often deals with themes of love and nature, as well as the relationship of the individual to the masses and to the world

Ezra Pound•Born on October 30, 1885

•American poet, critic, and intellectual

•Major figure of the Modernist and Imagist movements in the first half of the 20th century.

•Was in Paris from 1921 and became well-known for his advancement of writers such as Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce.

•During World War II, Pound made a series of openly fascist radio broadcasts and in 1945 was arrested by the U.S. forces. He was put in a six foot by six foot "gorilla cage.”

•Labelled as paranoid by the examining psychiatrists in a trial, Pound spent 12 years in Washington, D.C., in a hospital for the criminally insane.

•It has been suggested that Pound was feigning insanity to escape the death penalty, but the treason indictment did not drastically affect his ability to write and translate poetry. Pound died on November 1, 1972, in Venice.

IMPACTAs American customs became more defined,

European and other countries recognized America as a distinctive culture and nation.

Beyond this, the works of the Lost Generation give insight into American life during the 1920s. They unmask the general depression behind the forced exuberance of the Jazz Age.