The Great Gatsby and Fitzgerald's World of IdeasUniversity of Alabama Press, 1997 - 232 páginas Berman examines the intellectual and cultural milieu in which The Great Gatsby was created. The Great Gatsby and Fitzgerald's World of Ideas focuses on F. Scott Fitzgerald and the prevailing ideas and values that permeated American society in the late teens and early twenties, providing a vivid portrait of the intellectual and cultural milieu in which The Great Gatsby was produced. This new and original reading of Gatsby discloses Fitzgerald's remarkable awareness of the issues of his time and his debt to such philosophers and critics as William James, Josiah Royce, George Santayana, John Dewey, Walter Lippman, H. L. Mencken, and Edmund Wilson. Ronald Berman's fresh approach considers the meaning of various ideas important to the novel: for example, those moral qualities governing both social and individual life. Berman's reading of the text reveals extraordinary emphases on matters that could productively be described as philosophical -- the nature of friendship, love, and the good life. But the text of the novel has many echoes, and the same concern with moral issues -- especially those issues affecting democratic life -- can be found in a number of other texts of the first quarter of the century. Vigorously debated throughout Fitzgerald's own lifetime, these texts shed a completely new light on the idealism of The Great Gatsby and on the penetrating view it has of life in a new form of American democracy. A noted Fitzgerald scholar, Berman makes it clear that accepted interpretations of The Great Gatsby and of Fitzgerald's work in general must be changed. Berman demonstrates that Fitzgerald wrote within a vast dialectic, relating the ideas of the twenties to those of the oldAmerica described in so many of his works. Gatsby, Nick Carraway, and the other characters of Fitzgerald's greatest novel all have to consider not only their relationship to the present but also their distance from what was once a highly meaningful past. Berman has written a book to earn the praise of scholars and interested intelligent readers. I have high respect for Berman's work because I learn from it.... An original and strong contribution to the entire scholarship on American literature and will remain a lovely example of what social history can do for literature. -- Milton R. Stern University of Connecticut Berman succeeds in throwing a fresh light on a masterpiece. -- Scott Donaldson College of William and Mary A thoughtful and penetrating appraisal of the morals, ideas, and ideals of the pre-World War I America that became the subjects of national debate prior to Fitzgerald's composition of The Great Gatsby. Berman succeeds brilliantly in opening to the reader a new door to understanding Fitzgerald's great novel. In a lucid, graceful, readable book, Berman proves that fine scholarship can always uncover a new layer of meaning enabling us to enter the world of the novel as if for the first time. No reader could ask for more. -- Ruth Prigozy Hofstra University |
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Página 30
... identity , and as long as Lippmann and Dewey were alive , there would be continuing allusions to and development of his own arguments . The focus was on American lives : Pragmatism , to mention only one of his shelf of works , contains ...
... identity , and as long as Lippmann and Dewey were alive , there would be continuing allusions to and development of his own arguments . The focus was on American lives : Pragmatism , to mention only one of his shelf of works , contains ...
Página 87
... identity . Fitzgerald did not originate the idea of the conscious choice of identity — in one form it was al- ready an American issue in advertising . In a considerably loftier form it was debated by the Public Philosophy . Here is a ...
... identity . Fitzgerald did not originate the idea of the conscious choice of identity — in one form it was al- ready an American issue in advertising . In a considerably loftier form it was debated by the Public Philosophy . Here is a ...
Página 90
... identity.1 • Most will disappear from the text , although Doctor Webster Civet and Klipspringer will continue in bit parts . But all constitute a kind of group memory of America and are signposts of events to come . In some respects the ...
... identity.1 • Most will disappear from the text , although Doctor Webster Civet and Klipspringer will continue in bit parts . But all constitute a kind of group memory of America and are signposts of events to come . In some respects the ...
Contenido
Old Values and New Times | 18 |
Demos | 44 |
Community and Crowd | 68 |
Derechos de autor | |
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Términos y frases comunes
American appears become begins believe Buchanan called Cambridge century chapter character civilization comes connection consciousness critic crowd culture Daisy dance deal debate democracy described Dewey dreams early echoes Edited energy especially essay experience expression fact feeling fiction figure Gatsby Gatsby's George gives human idea ideal identity imagination important individual interesting issue John Jordan kind knows language later Lippmann literary lives look magazines mass matter means Mencken mind moral Myrtle narrative natural never Nick novel Opinion particular past Philosophy phrase political Public reader reason relationship reminds Royce Santayana scene Scott Fitzgerald seems sense sexual social society story style telling things thought tion turn twenties understands University Press values vitality Walter William James Wilson Writings York