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English Literature Author: Ernest Hemingway
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by Suzanne del Gizzo
Georgetown University
Washington, District of Columbia
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More About Ernest Hemingway...
Ernest Miller Hemingway
1899-1961
American
Introduction
Major Works
Chronology
Introduction
Known for his hypermasculine behavior, his zeal for life, and his simple but powerful prose style, Ernest Miller Hemingway is one of the most recognized and compelling figures in twentieth-century American life and letters. Hemingway began his literary career in expatriate Paris under the mentorship of Gertrude Stein and Ezra Pound. His early works -- in particular, In Our Time, The Sun Also Rises, and A Farewell to Arms -- were applauded for capturing the postwar malaise of what Stein had termed the "lost generation." In these works, Hemingway introduced the themes of personal morality and grace under pressure that would recur throughout his writing. These themes are typically embodied in the "Hemingway Code Hero, " a practical, resourceful, but wounded man who struggles to maintain honor and dignity and to enjoy life amid flux, corruption, and the ever-present, existential threat of nada. Hemingway, however, is as famous for his personal life and exploits as he is for his writing. In fact, the Code Hero is often associated with Hemingway himself since much of Hemingway's fictional output can be traced to personal experience. Throughout his life, Hemingway sought out extreme physical experiences. In addition to a lifelong love of fishing and hunting, including big game hunting, Hemingway served as an ambulance driver in Italy during World War I, where he was wounded, and as a correspondent in numerous other wars, including the Spanish Civil War and World War II. His trademark simple and concrete style is the result of his training as a journalist and what he called the iceberg method of writing, in which the force of the prose relies on what remains "under the surface" or unsaid. In addition to novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway mastered the short story. His Nick Adams stories, as well as pieces like "The Snows of Kilimanjaro, " "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber, " and "Hills Like White Elephants, " are among his crowning literary achievements. In 1954, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
After several years of severe depression and frequent hospitalization, Hemingway committed suicide in Ketchum, Idaho, on July 2, 1961. Since his death, Hemingway's literary reputation has waxed and waned. Regarded as a standard in American letters during the first half of the twentieth century, critics in the 1970s and 1980s condemned Hemingway's fiction and personal behavior as mere exercises in machismo and anti-intellectualism. Recently, however, critics and readers have begun to recover a sense of Hemingway as a nuanced man with complicated relations to issues of gender, race, and sexuality that find expression both in his life and work. This resurgence of critical interest in Hemingway is, in part, a result of posthumously published works, including Islands in the Stream (1970), The Garden of Eden (1986), and True at First Light (1999).
Major Works
- In Our Time (1924, 1925)
- The Sun Also Rises (1926)
- Men Without Women (1927)
- A Farewell to Arms (1929)
- 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 (1939)
- Across the River and into the Trees (1950)
- The Old Man and the Sea (1952)
Posthumous:
- A Moveable Feast (1964)
- Islands in the Stream (1970)
- The Dangerous Summer (1985)
- The Garden of Eden (1986)
- The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway: The Finca Vigia Edition (1987)
- True at First Light (1999)
Chronology
1899
Ernest Miller Hemingway (EH) is born to Clarence and Grace Hemingway on July 21 in Oak Park, Illinois.
1917
EH graduates high school and begins work as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star.
1918-1919
EH serves as a World War I ambulance driver for the Red Cross in Italy and is wounded on July 8, 1918, on the Italian Front. While recovering, he falls in love with nurse Agnes von Kurowsky.
1920
EH works as a reporter for the Toronto Star.
1921
EH marries Hadley Richardson on September 3. They move to Paris, France, with letter of introduction from Sherwood Anderson.
1922
EH serves as correspondent for the Toronto Star covering Greco-Turkish War. While in Paris, he meets Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, and other expatriates.
1923
EH publishes Three Stories and Ten Poems. His first son, John ("Bumby, " "Jack"), is born on October 10.
1925
EH publishes In Our Time, a book with 14 short stories and interspersed vignettes, with Boni & Liveright in New York. This collection is an extension of the shorter In Our Time published in Paris with only the vignettes in 1924.
1926
EH publishes Torrents of Spring and The Sun Also Rises with Charles Scribner's Sons in New York. Torrents, which parodies the work of Sherwood Anderson, causes EH to break publishing contract with Boni & Liveright (also Anderson's publisher).
1927
EH publishes Men Without Women, a short story collection. He marries Pauline Pfieffer on May 10 after divorcing Hadley Richardson on March 10.
1928
EH moves to Key West Florida. His second son (first with Pauline), Patrick ("Mouse"), is born on June 28.
1929
EH publishes A Farewell to Arms. His father commits suicide in Oak Park, Illinois.
1931
Third son, Gregory ("Gigi"), is born on November 12. EH buys house in Key West.
1932
EH publishes Death in the Afternoon, a nonfiction book on bullfighting.
1933
EH publishes Winner Take Nothing, a short story collection.
1934-1935
EH takes first East African safari with wife Pauline.
1935
EH publishes Green Hills of Africa, an account of his African safari.
1937
EH publishes To Have and Have Not. He covers Spanish Civil War for North American Newspaper Alliance.
1938
EH publishes The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories. He works with Joris Ivens on The Spanish Earth, a film espousing the Loyalist cause in the Spanish Civil War.
1940
EH publishes For Whom the Bell Tolls. He divorces Pauline Pfieffer on November 4 and marries Martha Gellhorn on November 21. EH purchases Finca Vigia (his house) in Cuba.
1944-1945
EH covers World War II and participates in Allied liberation of Paris, France. He meets Mary Welsh in London. EH divorces Martha Gellhorn on December 21, 1945.
1946
EH marries Mary Welsh on March 14.
1950
EH publishes Across the River and into the Trees.
1951
EH's mother, Grace Hall Hemingway, dies.
1952
EH publishes The Old Man and the Sea.
1953
EH receives the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea. He takes second East African safari and is severely wounded in the second of two plane crashes.
1954
EH receives the Nobel Prize for Literature.
1960
EH moves to Ketchum, Idaho, and is hospitalized for a variety of illnesses, including depression.
1961
EH commits suicide in Ketchum, Idaho, on July 2.
Suzanne del Gizzo received her B.A. from New York University, her M.A. from the University of Chicago, and her Ph.D. from Tulane University. She has taught at Tulane University and the University of Maryland, and is currently teaching at Georgetown University. She wrote her dissertation on Ernest Hemingway and is presently at work transforming that project into a book.
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