Today in AP Senior English

Today in AP Senior English Research Project Overview Hemingway Background Overview of Symbol, Allegory, and Fantasy Background on D. H. Lawrence Discuss “The Rocking-Horse Winner”

Homework • Review “The Rocking-Horse Winner” • Bring a revised copy of your personal/literary portfolio piece to class on Thursday, 10/4. • The final revision is due to www.turnitin.com by 11:30 PM on Monday, 10/8.

Ernest Hemingway Hemingway wounded during WWI The classic Hemingway image

Ernest Hemingway Background • Born Oak Park, IL 1899 (“wide lawns and narrow minds”) • Began career as Kansas City newspaper reporter at 17 • Stylistic influence: short sentences, short paragraphs, active verbs, authenticity, compression, clarity, and immediacy • Volunteered as Red Cross ambulance driver for Italian Army in WWI • Wounded, decorated by Italian gov’t, spent time in hospitals • Frustrated by romantic notions of war at home • Covered Greek Revolution for Canadian newspapers & Spanish Civil War for North American Newspaper Alliance

Background, cont’d • 1920’s became ex-patriot with wife (Hadley Richardson) in Paris w/ large group of artists (Ezra Pound, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein; knew Miro and Picasso) • Also lived in Key West, San Francisco do Paula, Cuba, and Ketchum, ID (all convenient to hunting & fishing) • Married 4 times • Committed suicide in Idaho 1961

Hemingway’s Literature • Major Novels • The Sun Also Rises (1926) – ex-patriot adventures in love & bullfighting • A Farewell to Arms (1929) – ambulance driver’s disillusionment and desertion • For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940) – Spanish Civil War • The Old Man and the Sea (1952) – personal struggle of fisherman; victory in defeat (won Nobel Prize after publication) • Short Story Collections: • Men Without Women (1927) • The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories (1938) • Nonfiction: • Death in the Afternoon (1932) dissertation on bullfighting

Hemingway’s Style • Portrayed soldiers, hunters, bullfighters – tough, noble characters in conflict with modern society (stoic hero – “grace under pressure” • Style: straightforward prose, spare dialogue, understatement – journalistic influence • Omitting the right thing from a story can strengthen it: ice berg comparison (1/8 visible; 7/8 invisible momentum)

Hemingway on Writing • From his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech: “[A true writer] should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then, sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed. It is because we have had such great writers in the past that a writer is driven far out past where he can go, out to where no one can help him.”

Citations Information • http://www.lostgeneration.com/childhood.htm • http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1954/hemingway-bio.html Images • http://www.corrystuart.com/ErnestHemingway.html • http://www.upnorthmichigan.com/treasuress/hemingway.htm

Symbol • Means more than what it suggests on the surface • Represents itself • Represents another meaning

Name Symbolism • Allusion • Class designation, meaning, country of origin • Ironic or double-entendre meaning • Wormsley Common Gang

Objects & Actions • Sometimes subtle • Reinforce and add to meaning • Sometimes central and obvious • Carry meaning • Usually less realistic stories • Notice repetition, prominence, and level of detail

Danger – Shun False Symbols • The story must furnish a clue that a detail is to be taken symbolically. • The meaning of the literary symbol must be established and supported by the entire context of the story. • To be called a symbol, an item must suggest a meaning different in kind from its literal meaning (not just a representative of it’s class/type). • A symbol may have more than one meaning or suggest a cluster of meanings.

A is for Allegory • Second meaning to entire story beneath the surface • Cluster of characters, objects or events with added significance • Each literal items relates to a corresponding abstract idea or moral principle • Some ambiguity to allegorical meaning with serious writers • Different than symbols because: • Less emphasis on literal meaning • More fixed ulterior meanings (pre-existing system of ideas/principles)

Fantasy • Transcends the bounds of known reality • Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “willing suspension of disbelief” • Can be commercial or literary • Magical Realism • Fantastic events woven into ordinary situations

D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930) • Born David Herbert Lawrence, Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, central England • father alcoholic coal miner • mother former school teacher • Poverty • Parental tensions • Attended Nottingham High School on scholarship • Clerk at surgical appliance factory • Pupil-teacher while at Nottingham University • Brief teaching career

Fun Facts • Helped mother commit suicide • Married a professor’s wife (left her husband & 3 children; eloped toBavaria) • Unable to obtain passports during WWII • Accused of spying for Germans • Exiled from Cornwall 1917-1919 • Expressionistic painter

Literary Career Highlights • 1909: Ford Maddox Ford publishes Lawrence’s poetry in English Review • 1911: Lawrence publishes The White Peacock – beginning of literary career • 1913: Sons and Lovers based on childhood • 1922: Aaron’s Rod shows Nietzsche’s influence • 1923: Kangaroo – superman character • 1928: Lady Chatterly’s Lover – affair between wealthy woman and man who works for husband • Banned in US & UK – pornographic

Style • Focus on: • class issues • relationships between men, women, & natural world • sexuality and politics (often controversial) • Nature & sexuality cures for evils of modern world • Prose style is poetic, didactic, symbolic • Poetry style is stark, immediate • Focus on inner life/force

Citations • http://www.mantex.co.uk/ou/a319/dhl-04.htm • http://www.online-literature.com/dh_lawrence/ • http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=3381619&CFTOKEN=95105618

Today in AP Senior English