Ernest Hemingway: Bibliography - Essay Example

Ernest Hemingway: Biography. Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), is one of the greatest American of all time. It can be said that “He was perhaps the most influential writer of his generation” (Poetry Foundation web site), with a host of successive writers attempting to imitate his style. His influence on the literary world endures even today. In his own lifetime, he was a best-selling author and also a celebrity, whose real-life escapades seem to belong to the pages of fiction. One is equally attracted by his literary genius and the richness of his character. A study of his life is a fascinating exercise which reveals him to be a larger-than-life personality, both as a writer and as a man.   Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on 21 July, 1899 in Oak Park, Chicago, the second child of Dr. Clarence Edmonds Hemingway, and Grace Hall Hemingway.  Hemingway later referred to his largely Protestant, suburban hometown as a “town of wide lawns and narrow minds” (qtd. in Reuben). His parents were devout members of the First Congregational Church, who enforced strict Sabbath rules and enforced corporeal punishment for disobedience. Hemingway spent the first six years of his life at the shorefront Bear Lake, where his father inculcated in him his life-long passion for the outdoors, and adventure sports such as fishing, camping and hunting. His mother attempted to develop his love of music and culture. (Hulse, Web site). Hemingway had a difficult relationship with his mother, resenting her dressing him up as a girl when he was a child, and later holding her to be partly responsible for the suicide of his father in 1928, due to severe diabetic and cardiac problems, and financial insecurity. He called her “an all-American bitch” (qtd. in Reuben) and did not attend her funeral in 1951. Hemingway studied in The Oak Park and River Forest Township High School, where he excelled in English, and learnt boxing, leading to some accusations of being a bully. (Hulse). Hemingway’s literary career began with his contribution of articles to the school paper, The Trapeze. His early role model was the popular satirist, Ring Lardner. (Reuben). On graduating from High School in 1917, Hemingway rejected his parents’ advice to attend college, and left for Kansas to work as a junior reporter for The Kansas City Star. His beat consisted of the 15th Street Police Station, the Union Station and the General Hospital. After a short stint of six months, Hemingway, whose defective eyesight ruled out his enlistment in the army in World War I, signed on as an ambulance driver in the American Red Cross. He joined duty in June 1918 in Milan, Italy. He was thrown into the thick of action soon after his arrival, dealing with the casualties of a munitions factory explosion. While distributing rations on the battleground in July 1918, Hemingway was hit by mortar shrapnel. He was awarded a silver medal for bravery by the Italian government. Hospitalization for severe leg injuries, followed by a bout of jaundice, saw the end of Hemingway’s participation in the war effort (Hulse). Hemingway’s life-long love affair with women began with the American nurse, Agnes von Kurowsky, whom he met during his hospitalization in Milan. Committed to her profession, and distrustful of the gap in their ages (she was older than the nineteen year old Hemingway by seven years), Agnes broke off their romance. This unconsummated love affair made a deep impression on Hemingway’s life. On his return to Michigan in 1920, Hemingway married Hadley Richardson, eight years his senior, but “unworldly, naive and inexperienced” (Hulse). He lived off her trust funds, complemented by his meager income as a reporter. He travelled extensively through Europe with her, and had his first son, John Hadley Hemingway. Hadley divorced Hemingway in 1927, following his affair with Pauline Pfeiffer, a fashion editor. Hemingway lived with Pauline in Florida, where their two sons, Patrick and Gregory Hancock, were born. In 1936, Hemingway began his affair with Martha Gellhorn, a journalist, whom he married in 1940. He could not adjust to a wife with a career and political convictions of her own, and their marriage was short-lived. Hemingway divorced Gellhorn and married Mary Welsh, a correspondent for Time magazine, in 1946. Although Hemingway remained married to Mary for the rest of his life, he had an affair with Adriana Ivancich and with a young Wakambu girl in Mombasa, among others. (Hulse). In Mary’s case, Hemingway said, “I wish I could leave her, I really do, but I'm too old now to afford a fourth divorce and the hell Mary would put me through” (qtd. in Timeless Hemingway.com). The numerous love affairs Hemingway indulged in throughout his life played havoc with his married life, with his divorces bringing on strong attacks of guilt and remorse. His friendships often deteriorated into quarrels and estrangement. Hemingway wrote of his mentor, Gertrude Stein, “She lost all sense of taste when she had the menopause” (qtd in Liukkonen), and portrayed Fitzgerald unsympathetically in his writing. His written criticism of his friends antagonized many. Gellhorn accused him of being “a mythomaniac” (qtd. in Liukkonen), who habitually embellished facts. Hemingway was an inveterate traveler, and lived life king-size, rising to any chance of adventure. He lived frequently in Paris; toured France, Italy and Switzerland; visited Greece and Turkey as a war correspondent; witnessed bullfights in Spain and reported on the Spanish Civil War; went on hunting expeditions to Africa; pursued deep-sea fishing in Cuba, Peru and the Bahamas; and travelled to China. (Liukkonen). In Cuba, Hemingway lived in the large Finca Vigia ("Lookout Farm"), where he formed a group called the ‘Crook Factory’ to hunt German submarines. He participated in the D-day invasion with the RAF. Hemingway was also haunted by a succession of physical ailments and accidents: concussion of the brain, ruptured liver, crushed vertebra, temporary hearing and vision loss, and first-degree burns from two planes crashes in 1954 (Timeless Hemingway.com).  His vast consumption of alcohol gradually led to cirrhosis of the liver, high blood pressure, obesity and delusions. Hemingway’s irresponsibility with alcohol led him to introduce his young children to liquor: Patrick had alcoholic problems and Gregory died of drug abuse as a transvestite in prison. (Liukkonen). Hemingway’s depression resulted in his hospitalization in 1960. The controversial electric-shock therapy he was given diminished his memory. Losing his ability to write, and suffering from ill health, Hemingway committed suicide by shooting himself with his shot gun on 2 July, 1961. On the professional front, on his return from World War I, Hemingway worked as a reporter for the Cooperative Commonwealth. He went on to become the foreign correspondent of The Toronto Star, after his move to Paris in 1921. At the center of the modernist movement, Hemingway cultivated the friendship of Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound and James Joyce. Stein served as his mentor and introduced him to the circle of American expatriates termed ‘the lost generation.’ Hemingway published his first books, Three Stories and Ten Poems, (1923), In Our Times, (1924), and Torrents of Spring, (1926) in Paris. Hemingway then gave up journalism and became a full-time writer. With the publication of The Sun Also Rises in 1926, Hemingway tasted literary success. The primary works which followed were Men Without Women, 1927; A Farewell to Arms, 1929 (inspired by Agnes); Death in the Afternoon, 1932; Winner Take Nothing, 1933; Green Hills of Africa, 1935; To Have and Have Not, 1937; The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories, 1938; For Whom the Bell Tolls, 1940; Men at War: The Best War Stories of All Time, 1942; Across the River and Into the Trees, 1950; The Old Man and the Sea, 1952; A Moveable Feast; 1964; By-Line: Ernest Hemingway, 1967;Islands in the Stream, 1970; The Nick Adams Stories, 1972; The Garden of Eden, 1986; The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, 1987; and True at First Light, 1999.  The Old Man and the Sea won the Pulitzer Prize in 1953. This was followed by Hemingway’s crowning laurel as a writer: the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954, for his "mastery of the art of modern narration," (qtd. in Reuben). Ernest Hemingway’s stature as a literary genius is in no way diminished by his weaknesses as a man. His “search for truth and accuracy of expression is reflected in his terse, economical prose style, which is widely acknowledged to be his greatest contribution to literature” (Poetry Foundation). His characteristic ‘lean’ style of writing is attributed to his stint as a journalist with The Kansas City Star, where he developed short sentences and vigorous writing. Hemingway’s style incorporates “short and simple sentence constructions, --- purged diction, --- and skilful use of repetition” (Grebstein, qtd. in Poetry Foundation). As a writer, Hemingway is the epitome of self-discipline. His eloquence, meticulous writing, avoidance of intellectual pretension, and, above all, his steadfast conviction that “The writer’s job is to tell the truth” (qtd. in the Poetry Foundation), continue to exert an unparalleled impact on the literary world. His innovative ‘Iceberg Theory,’ whereby a writer gives the reader only essential information, leaving the rest to his reader’s feeling, is now a tenet of modern writing (Reuben). His simple language, bolstered by understatement and omission, make his writing richly multilayered (Liukkonen). Both as a man and as a writer, Hemingway deserves his place in the pantheon of great men of the twentieth century. Ernest Hemingway said of books, “And if it’s good enough, it lasts forever” (Time, 11). By this standard, Hemingway’s books will endure for all time. Works Cited. Hulse, Caroline. 2006. “Ernest Hemingway.” Web site. Accessed on 30 April 2012. Liukkonen, Petri. 2008. “Ernest (Miller) Hemingway(1899-1961).” Books and Writers. Accessed on 30 April 2012. MacLeish, Archibald. “Books: An American Storyteller.” Time. December 13, 1954. Accessed on 30 April 2012. Poetry Foundation. “Ernest M. Hemingway.” 2011. Biography. Accessed on 30 April 2012. Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 7: Ernest Hemingway." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. Accessed on 30 April 2012. Timeless Hemingway. 2012. Web Site. Accessed on 30 April 2012. Read More