The 20th century was an incredible century for English literature, and Ernest Hemingway is responsible for much of that innovation. Born in 1899, Hemingway would go on to become one of the greatest writers of all time, winning the prestigious Nobel Prize in literature in 1954. His novels, short stories, and even poems all deal with his large passion for the Spanish Civil War, which began in 1936 and lasted until 1939. The brutal war between Nationalists (Republicans) and Fascists (Populists) divided Hemingway’s home country of Spain, with the writer himself opting to support the Republicans. It would change his life, as well as the lives of many around him.
Early Influences
Prior to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Ernest Hemingway had already achieved great success. His first collection of short stories, In Our Time, was published in 1925 and received the prestigious First Prize for Short Stories from the American magazine The Grand Tour. Three of his other short story collections – In another Country, The Better Half, and The Woman Who Lied – also won this award. The Grand Tour was the most prestigious competition for short stories in the US at that time, receiving only the best of the best for its Short Story Award. The magazine was edited by Van Cleef and William Randolph Hearst at the time, and was responsible for many innovative aspects of the time, from popularizing the art of collage to championing the career of F. Scott Fitzgerald. With these early accolades in hand, Ernest Hemingway set about defining himself as a creative writer.
Hemingway’s Career
After the war had ended in 1939, Ernest Hemingway returned to his home in Cuba with his new wife, Pauline, intending to rebuild his life and write about the beautiful Spanish countryside. In fact, one of the first things he did on arriving in Cuba was to buy a shotgun, as he had become obsessed with hunting after his years battling it out on the battlefields of Spain. His new wife was not a fan of hunting, however, and managed to talk him out of it. While hunting was not a part of their married life (or vice versa), Pauline Hemingway remained dedicated to her husband’s writing, acting as his chief editor and collaborator on many of his works. Together, the couple comprised the Hemingway Writing Group, a group of expat American writers – including David S. Berman, who would later found the journal Granta – who met in the Caribbean and shared their passion for literature and writing. The 1940s were a fruitful decade for the Hemingway Writing Group, with four of their published books making the top 10 of the year’s best-selling novels in America.
Ernest Hemingway’s next work to hit the big screen would be For Whom the Bell Tolls, released in 1941. Set in the Spanish Civil War and starring Gary Cooper, it was based on Ernest Hemingway’s 1937 novel of the same name – and like its predecessor, the movie was also nominated for four Academy Awards. The highlight of the film is when Gary Cooper’s character sacrifices himself to save a family of refugees at the cost of his own life. His last novel, The Sun Also Rises, was published in 1926 and is often considered a masterpiece. In it, he depicts the Parisian debauchery of the Roaring Twenties and follows the trials and tribulations of a group of wealthy expats who go on a series of adventures in and around the French capital. The novel explores themes of class and status in a way that reflected the social and economic divisions that plagued 1920s Paris and much of Europe in general. These themes are still considered to be among Hemingway’s strongest and most original contributions to literature.
Creative Influences
Not content with defining himself as a creative writer, Ernest Hemingway then set about redefining the genre. Beginning in the 1940s, he began experimenting with different narrative techniques, stylistic choices, and even forms. He often used the technique of stream-of-consciousness, a technique that allows the author’s thoughts, perceptions, and feelings to flow freely as they enter the author’s head, rather than having to follow a prescribed narrative pattern. This technique permits greater artistic license and more originality, as the writer is liberated from the restraints imposed by a rigid narrative.
To further experiment with form, Hemingway turned to poetry, creating what many consider to be his greatest work, his 1955 collection of poems For Sale: Poems 1918-1955 – which was originally published in four volumes (later reissued in a single volume in 2011). This volume of poetry explores the themes of death, loss, and longing, finding a new narrative mode in the form of a death scene: a direct result of his fascination with the Spanish Civil War.
Hemingway would continue to redefine the form and function of poetry and prose in the 20th century, creating a new hybrid form called “fictions,” or “fictionsociety,” a term that he popularized. Fictions are prose poems, often with a narrative arc, that often function as snapshots of fleeting moments in time, with an emphasis on mood and tone rather than strict narrative. In this way, Hemingway’s fictions are considered to be both prose poems and novels, functioning both as artistic expression and as a vehicle for storytelling. It was a form that would influence many others, including J.D. Salinger and William Faulkner, who would in turn influence Ernest Hemingway.
Ernest Hemingway’s career as a writer was by no means over, and the 1960s would see him continue to define himself as a writer, although increasingly he would define himself as a “naturalist” or a “realist,” with a more specific focus on the Spanish Civil War and its shadowed aftermath. In fact, it was as a writer that Ernest Hemingway would be best known, with his works defining him as an innovator and a maverick, a writer who broke all the rules and experimented with form, style, narrative, and even gender itself, turning conventional notions of what a man was expected to be into something new and wonderful. With his own life cut short due to health problems, Hemingway would die in July 1961, at the age of 61, but not before he saw the genre he helped to shape redefined and repackaged for a new era. He would remain influential long after his death, with many fans, supporters, and even detractors declaring his brilliance even today.