Hemingway+and+Modernism

Hemingway and Modernism Philosopher and composer [|Theodor Adorno]warns us: "Modernity is a qualitative, not a chronological, category. Just as it cannot be reduced to abstract form, with equal necessity it must turn its back on conventional surface coherence, the appearance of harmony, the order corroborated merely by replication." [|[5]] Adorno would have us understand modernity as the rejection of the false rationality, harmony, and coherence of Enlightenment thinking, art, and music.

Literary scholar Peter Childs sums up the complexity: "There were paradoxical if not opposed trends towards revolutionary and reactionary positions, fear of the new and delight at the disappearance of the old, nihilism and fanatical enthusiasm, creativity and despair." [|[7]]

These oppositions are inherent to modernism: it is in its broadest cultural sense the assessment of the past //as// different to the modern age, the recognition that the world was becoming more complex, and that the old "final authorities" (God, government, science, and reason) were subject to intense critical scrutiny.

Modernism is “a challenge to any comfortable ideas of certainty derived by civilization, history, or pure reason.”

At first, modernism was called the "[|avant-garde]," and the term remained to describe movements which identify themselves as attempting to overthrow some aspect of tradition or the status quo. [|[12]]

Modernism, while still "progressive," increasingly saw traditional forms and traditional social arrangements as hindering progress, and therefore recast the artist as a revolutionary, overthrowing rather than enlightening.

Minimalism argued that extreme simplicity could capture all of the sublime representation needed in art.

The above is taken from Wikipedia: Modernism

Art for Art’s Sake was a rallying cry, a call for art’s freedom from the demands of tyranny of meaning and purpose. From a progressive modernist’s point of view, it was a further exercise of freedom. It was also a ploy, another deliberate affront to bourgeois sensibility. In his book, //The Gentle Art Of Making Enemies//, published in 1890, the progressive modernist painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler, proposed that ‘Art should be independent of all claptrap – should stand alone, and appeal to the artistic sense of eye and ear, without confounding this with emotions entirely foreign to it, as devotion, pity, love, patriotism, and the like. All these have no kind of concern with it.’

In her book //Has Modernism Failed?// which initiated this discussion, Suzi Gablik makes the following observation: In the complex transition from modernism into postmodernism, a new terrain of consciousness is being occupied — one in which the limits of art seem to have been reached, and overturning conventions has become routine. As long as we are willing to consider //anything// as art, innovation no longer seems possible, or even desirable.

The above taken from: []

From almost the beginning of his writing career, Hemingway employed a distinctive style which drew comment from many critics. Hemingway does not give way to lengthy geographical and psychological description. His style has been said to lack substance because he avoids direct statements and descriptions of emotion. Basically his style is simple, direct and somewhat plain. He developed a forceful prose style characterized by simple sentences and few adverbs or adjectives. He wrote concise, vivid dialogue and exact description of places and things. Critic Harry Levin pointed out the weakness of syntax and diction in Hemingway's writing, but was quick to praise his ability to convey action(Rovit 47).

Hemingway spent the early part of his career as a journalist. In 1937, he went to Spain to cover the Spanish Civil War for the North American Newspaper Alliance. After a few months in Spain, Hemingway announced his plan to write a book with the Spanish Civil War as its background. The result was For Whom the Bell Tolls.

The majority of his early novels were narrated in the first person and enclosed within a single point of view, however, when Hemingway wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls, he used several different narrative techniques. He employed the use of internal monologues(where the reader is in the "mind" of a particular character), objective descriptions, rapid shifts of point of view, and in general a looser structure than in his earlier works. Hemingway believed that "a writer's style should be direct and personal, his imagery rich and earthy, and his words simple and vigorous. The greatest writers have the gift of brevity, are hard workers, diligent scholars and competent stylists(Magill 1287).

Common to almost all of Hemingway's novels is the concept of the Hemingway hero, sometimes known as the "code hero." When Hemingway's novels were first published, the public readily accepted them. Part of this acceptance was due to the fact that Hemingway had created a character whose response to life appealed strongly to those who read his works. The reader saw in the Hemingway hero a person whom they could identify with in almost a dream sense. The Hemmingway hero was a man's man. He moved from one love affair to another, he participated in wild game hunting, enjoyed bullfights, drank insatiably, he was involved in all of the so-called manly activities in which the typical American male did not participate(Rovit 56).

In contrast to the Hemingway heroes are his female characters. Hemingway's approach to women in his works is particularly masculine. They are seen and valued in relation to the men in his stories insofar as they are absolutely feminine. Hemingway does not go into their inner world except as this world is related to the men with whom they are involved. The reader comes to view them as love objects or as anti-love figures (Whitlock 231). Part of the reason Hemingway had this opinion of woman was because the way he viewed his mother. He believed his mother to be a manipulator and blamed her in part for the suicide of his father. "The qualities he thought admirable in a man-ambition, and independent point of view, defiance of his supremacy-became threatening in a woman"(Kert 103). <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The above taken from: http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Writing-Style-of-Hemingway&id=70613