person1899–1961

Hemingway

Disciplines:

Summary

American novelist and journalist — Nobel Prize in Literature 1954 — author of The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, and The Old Man and the Sea — who created the most influential prose style in 20th-century American fiction.

Core Contribution

Creates the Hemingway prose style — the iceberg theory (that the writer knows far more than is written and the quality of the prose depends on what is omitted) and the plain declarative sentence as the primary literary unit transformed American prose; more imitations of Hemingway's style exist than of any other 20th-century American writer.

Key Spikes & Highlights

His Paris years with Fitzgerald were the most mutually consequential friendship in American literature — Fitzgerald gave Hemingway the opening of The Sun Also Rises to rewrite (Hemingway removed the long backstory); Hemingway later savaged Fitzgerald in A Moveable Feast; the relationship between the two most influential American novelists of the 1920s involves more documented generosity, cruelty, and creative competition than any other literary friendship
Described the iceberg theory but never called it that — Hemingway's famous description of his technique ('If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things he knows and the reader will still have a feeling of those things') is the most quoted writer's statement about prose craft and generated the 'iceberg theory' label he didn't use; the most influential writing theory in American literature was named by critics, not its originator

Notable Works & Achievements

The Sun Also Rises

A Farewell to Arms

For Whom the Bell Tolls

The Old Man and the Sea

A Moveable Feast

Historical Influences

Gertrude Stein Ezra Pound Kansas City Star house style Mark Twain

Intellectual Lineage

Oak Park, Illinois Kansas City Star World War I ambulance driver Paris Oak Park to Spain to Paris Cuba The Sun Also Rises Nobel Prize Suicide

Contemporaries & Peers

F. Scott Fitzgerald Gertrude Stein Ezra Pound

Minds Influenced

American prose style 20th century fiction

Intellectual Posterity

The Sun Also Rises A Farewell to Arms For Whom the Bell Tolls The Old Man and the Sea Nobel Prize Iceberg theory Hemingway style

Discussing

Hemingway

Ask anything about Hemingway — their ideas, influences, contradictions, legacy.

person1899–1961

Hemingway

Disciplines:

fiction

journalism

american history/america

science/nobel

Summary

Core Contribution

Key Spikes & Highlights

His Paris years with Fitzgerald were the most mutually consequential friendship in American literature — Fitzgerald gave Hemingway the opening of The Sun Also Rises to rewrite (Hemingway removed the long backstory); Hemingway later savaged Fitzgerald in A Moveable Feast; the relationship between the two most influential American novelists of the 1920s involves more documented generosity, cruelty, and creative competition than any other literary friendship
Described the iceberg theory but never called it that — Hemingway's famous description of his technique ('If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things he knows and the reader will still have a feeling of those things') is the most quoted writer's statement about prose craft and generated the 'iceberg theory' label he didn't use; the most influential writing theory in American literature was named by critics, not its originator

Notable Works & Achievements

The Sun Also Rises

A Farewell to Arms

For Whom the Bell Tolls

The Old Man and the Sea

A Moveable Feast

Historical Influences

Gertrude Stein Ezra Pound Kansas City Star house style Mark Twain

Intellectual Lineage

Oak Park, Illinois Kansas City Star World War I ambulance driver Paris Oak Park to Spain to Paris Cuba The Sun Also Rises Nobel Prize Suicide

Contemporaries & Peers

F. Scott Fitzgerald Gertrude Stein Ezra Pound

Minds Influenced

American prose style 20th century fiction

Intellectual Posterity

The Sun Also Rises A Farewell to Arms For Whom the Bell Tolls The Old Man and the Sea Nobel Prize Iceberg theory Hemingway style

Discussing

Hemingway

Ask anything about Hemingway — their ideas, influences, contradictions, legacy.