Literary Influences
Fitzgerald's work was inspired by his personal life and
the culture of the 1920's. Princeton also influenced Fitzgerald, even though he dropped out to join the army. Literature held a lasting impact on Fitzgerald. He was influenced by several other writers, most notably: T.S. Eliot, Joseph Conrad, Ernest Hemingway, and John Keats. Fitzgerald was one of the most influential members of a group known as the Lost Generation. He died considering himself a failure; however, by the 1960's he had achieved a well known status among American literary figures. The Great Gatsby, which explores the themes of ambition and disillusionment, is regarded as one of the most important works of the 20th century. “Life is much more successfully looked at from a single window.” -F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby |
Author
Kelly Donnelly, Writing and Publication major at the University of North Georgia Sections T.S. Eliot Joseph Conrad John Keats Ernest Hemingway The Lost Generation |
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T.S. Eliot
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T. S. Eliot is considered to be one of the 20th century's major poets. He is most well known for his poems The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, The Hollow Men, Ash Wednesday, and Four Quartets. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, for his outstanding contribution to modern day poetry. T. S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land definitely influenced F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, particularly in
the passage describing the valley of ashes. In the novel, the valley of ashes is depicted as a "fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of ash-grey men, who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud which screens their obscure operations from your sight. The valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul river, and, when the drawbridge is up to let barges through, the passengers on waiting trains can stare at the dismal scene for as long as half an hour."
The Great Gatsby's "valley of ashes" and Eliot's Waste Land obviously resemble each other symbolically in that they both describe a decaying, grim landscape. Fitzgerald's "valley of ashes" depicts a scene similar to the "waste land" of Eliot's poem. Few people comment on how the words describing Gatsby's "valley of ashes" resemble lines in Eliot's Waste Land.
Some of the phrases in the poem that resemble the "valley of ashes" are the references to the “dead land” (2), “stony rubbish” (20), “a handful of dust” (30), “the brown land” (175), “rock and no water and the sandy road” (332), “mountains of rock without water” (334), “dry sterile thunder without rain” (342), “dry grass” (355), “no water” (359), and "empty cisterns and exhausted wells” (385).
Eliot's Waste Land does not contain the words "valley" or "ashes," so the comparison between the two pieces is not literal but symbolic. Fitzgerald admired Eliot as a writer and used the imagery represented in Eliot's poem to describe a similar scene for the "valley of ashes."
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
-T.S. Eliot
the passage describing the valley of ashes. In the novel, the valley of ashes is depicted as a "fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of ash-grey men, who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud which screens their obscure operations from your sight. The valley of ashes is bounded on one side by a small foul river, and, when the drawbridge is up to let barges through, the passengers on waiting trains can stare at the dismal scene for as long as half an hour."
The Great Gatsby's "valley of ashes" and Eliot's Waste Land obviously resemble each other symbolically in that they both describe a decaying, grim landscape. Fitzgerald's "valley of ashes" depicts a scene similar to the "waste land" of Eliot's poem. Few people comment on how the words describing Gatsby's "valley of ashes" resemble lines in Eliot's Waste Land.
Some of the phrases in the poem that resemble the "valley of ashes" are the references to the “dead land” (2), “stony rubbish” (20), “a handful of dust” (30), “the brown land” (175), “rock and no water and the sandy road” (332), “mountains of rock without water” (334), “dry sterile thunder without rain” (342), “dry grass” (355), “no water” (359), and "empty cisterns and exhausted wells” (385).
Eliot's Waste Land does not contain the words "valley" or "ashes," so the comparison between the two pieces is not literal but symbolic. Fitzgerald admired Eliot as a writer and used the imagery represented in Eliot's poem to describe a similar scene for the "valley of ashes."
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
-T.S. Eliot
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Joseph Conrad
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Joseph Conrad was a Polish author who wrote
in English after relocating to England. Conrad is
considered to be one of the best English fiction writers, although he did not speak the
language fluently until he was in his twenties. He
has influenced many authors, including T.S. Eliot,
F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, and George Orwell, among others. Conrad was particularly influential on three major writers who were born a decade after T.S. Eliot: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner. Both
Fitzgerald and Hemingway admired and discussed Conrad's work. Fitzgerald cited Nostromo as "the
great novel of the past fifty years," and he explained
in a letter to the Chicago Tribune: "I'd rather have written Conrad's Nostromo than any other novel because Nostromo, the man, intrigues me so much. [Conrad] took this man of the people and imagined him with such a completeness that there is no use of any one else pondering over him for some time. He is one of the most important types in our civilization, one that always made a haunting and irresistible appeal to me."
In 1925, Fitzgerald told H. L. Mencken that he had "learned a lot from Conrad" and had imitated him in The Great Gatsby. This influence can be seen in Fitzgerald's style, plot, symbolism and theme of romantic illusion. The imitation of Conrad can also be seen in the narration as Nick Carraway is modeled on Charlie Marlow. Both Hemingway and Fitzgerald learned from Conrad how to use more subtle conclusions in their novels. Fitzgerald remarked to John Peale Bishop in 1934: "It was Ernest Hemingway who developed to me, in conversation [and demonstrated in the last sentence of A Farewell to Arms] that the dying fall was preferable to the dramatic ending under certain conditions, and I think we both got the germ of the idea from Conrad."
Conrad described the continuing musical effect he wanted to deliver in the conclusion of Heart of Darkness: "That sombre theme had to be given a sinister resonance, a tonality of its own, a continued vibration that, I hoped, would hang in the air and dwell on the ear after the last note had been struck." Conrad ended his novel by associating the Thames with the Congo's collective unconsciousness: "The tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky-seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness." Fitzgerald adopted Conrad's use of a psychological metaphor in his concluding sentence: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
“Your strength is just an accident owed to the weakness of others.”
-Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
in English after relocating to England. Conrad is
considered to be one of the best English fiction writers, although he did not speak the
language fluently until he was in his twenties. He
has influenced many authors, including T.S. Eliot,
F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, and George Orwell, among others. Conrad was particularly influential on three major writers who were born a decade after T.S. Eliot: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Faulkner. Both
Fitzgerald and Hemingway admired and discussed Conrad's work. Fitzgerald cited Nostromo as "the
great novel of the past fifty years," and he explained
in a letter to the Chicago Tribune: "I'd rather have written Conrad's Nostromo than any other novel because Nostromo, the man, intrigues me so much. [Conrad] took this man of the people and imagined him with such a completeness that there is no use of any one else pondering over him for some time. He is one of the most important types in our civilization, one that always made a haunting and irresistible appeal to me."
In 1925, Fitzgerald told H. L. Mencken that he had "learned a lot from Conrad" and had imitated him in The Great Gatsby. This influence can be seen in Fitzgerald's style, plot, symbolism and theme of romantic illusion. The imitation of Conrad can also be seen in the narration as Nick Carraway is modeled on Charlie Marlow. Both Hemingway and Fitzgerald learned from Conrad how to use more subtle conclusions in their novels. Fitzgerald remarked to John Peale Bishop in 1934: "It was Ernest Hemingway who developed to me, in conversation [and demonstrated in the last sentence of A Farewell to Arms] that the dying fall was preferable to the dramatic ending under certain conditions, and I think we both got the germ of the idea from Conrad."
Conrad described the continuing musical effect he wanted to deliver in the conclusion of Heart of Darkness: "That sombre theme had to be given a sinister resonance, a tonality of its own, a continued vibration that, I hoped, would hang in the air and dwell on the ear after the last note had been struck." Conrad ended his novel by associating the Thames with the Congo's collective unconsciousness: "The tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky-seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness." Fitzgerald adopted Conrad's use of a psychological metaphor in his concluding sentence: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
“Your strength is just an accident owed to the weakness of others.”
-Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
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John Keats
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John Keats was an English Romantic poet. His poems were not particularly popular when he was alive, but his reputation grew after his death. By the end of the 19th century, he had become one of the most well known and appreciated of all English poets. He had a significant influence on many poets and writers, including Fitzgerald. Today, his poems are some of the most popular in English literature. Fitzgerald's favorite writer was John Keats. Regarding the "Ode on a Grecian Urn" Fitzgerald said, "I suppose I've read it a hundred times. About the tenth time I began to know what it was about, and caught the chime in it and the exquisite inner mechanics. Likewise with the "Ode to a Nightingale" which I can never read without tears in my eyes. And "The Eve of St. Agnes" has the richest, most sensuous imagery in English, not excepting Shakespeare."
References to Keats's poetry can be seen throughout The Great Gatsby. One example is how several scenes in The Great Gatsby take place in starlit nights. Gatsby reveals his character more in these scenes than most other scenes in the novel. The starlit nights are similar to a line from Keats's poetry that says, "the man under the wandering stars who wants to comprehend and join his life to a precious being of eternal beauty."
Fitzgerald obviously borrows from Keats's language. Near the end of the 5th chapter, "there was no light save what the gleaming floor bounced in from the hall" is clearly influenced by Keats's phrase in the "Ode to a Nightingale" which says, "there is no light, / Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown." Another line from that poem provided the title for Fitzgerald's work, Tender Is the Night.
When Nick Carraway tells the story of when Gatsby kisses Daisy he is "reminded of something-an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I heard somewhere a long time ago." Both Keats's poem and Fitzgerald's novel use ancient symbolism. Keats's palace represents the ancient home of Gatsby's mansion where "The silver, snarling trumpets 'gan to chide: / The level chambers, ready with their pride... glowing to receive a thousand guests..."
Another example Keats's influence on The Great Gatsby is one of its most well- known passages when Gatsby shows Daisy his wealth by tossing all of his shirts into a heap on the table. Many critics have noticed the scene is quite similar to a passage in "The Eve of St. Agnes," as both Daisy and Madeline cry.
In The Great Gatsby, an epigraph appears in the form of a short poem:
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry “Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!”
Some claim that Fitzgerald wanted to be both a poet and a writer. Keats’s influence on Fitzgerald is generally overlooked. Fitzgerald wasn’t the only writer of his time who appreciated Romantic poetry. Many of his fellow writers studied the Romantics while in school and continued to read them into their later years.
“I was never afraid of failure; for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.”
-John Keats
References to Keats's poetry can be seen throughout The Great Gatsby. One example is how several scenes in The Great Gatsby take place in starlit nights. Gatsby reveals his character more in these scenes than most other scenes in the novel. The starlit nights are similar to a line from Keats's poetry that says, "the man under the wandering stars who wants to comprehend and join his life to a precious being of eternal beauty."
Fitzgerald obviously borrows from Keats's language. Near the end of the 5th chapter, "there was no light save what the gleaming floor bounced in from the hall" is clearly influenced by Keats's phrase in the "Ode to a Nightingale" which says, "there is no light, / Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown." Another line from that poem provided the title for Fitzgerald's work, Tender Is the Night.
When Nick Carraway tells the story of when Gatsby kisses Daisy he is "reminded of something-an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I heard somewhere a long time ago." Both Keats's poem and Fitzgerald's novel use ancient symbolism. Keats's palace represents the ancient home of Gatsby's mansion where "The silver, snarling trumpets 'gan to chide: / The level chambers, ready with their pride... glowing to receive a thousand guests..."
Another example Keats's influence on The Great Gatsby is one of its most well- known passages when Gatsby shows Daisy his wealth by tossing all of his shirts into a heap on the table. Many critics have noticed the scene is quite similar to a passage in "The Eve of St. Agnes," as both Daisy and Madeline cry.
In The Great Gatsby, an epigraph appears in the form of a short poem:
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry “Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!”
Some claim that Fitzgerald wanted to be both a poet and a writer. Keats’s influence on Fitzgerald is generally overlooked. Fitzgerald wasn’t the only writer of his time who appreciated Romantic poetry. Many of his fellow writers studied the Romantics while in school and continued to read them into their later years.
“I was never afraid of failure; for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.”
-John Keats
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Ernest Hemingway
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Ernest Hemingway was an American author and journalist who had a strong influence on 20th century literature. He published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Many of his works are
recognized as American classics. He is most well known for The Old Man and the Sea, The Sun Also Rises, and For Whom the Bell Tolls, and A Farewell to Arms. In Paris, Fitzgerald
met Ernest Hemingway, and the two formed a close,
lifelong friendship of "admiration and hostility." Their friendship was based largely on Fitzgerald's admiration for Hemingway’s work. Hemingway and Fitzgerald were influenced by each other. Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby the same year they had met. Hemingway read and enjoyed The Great Gatsby and became inspired to write larger texts. He decided that his next work should be a novel.
Hemingway also influenced Fitzgerald. As mentioned in Conrad's discussion, Fitzgerald once remarked, "It was Ernest Hemingway who developed to me, in conversation [and demonstrated in the last sentence of A Farewell to Arms] that the dying fall was preferable to the dramatic ending under certain conditions."
The relationship that Hemingway maintained with Fitzgerald had a substantial effect on his writing style. Their rivalry likely influenced Fitzgerald's later works. Hemingway wrote The Sun Also Rises shortly after he read The Great Gatsby. Hemingway wrote his first novel with The Great Gatsby in mind, and the novel was filled with anger and frustration directed at Fitzgerald. At that time, Hemingway was determined to write a more successful novel than The Great Gatsby. Hemingway and Fitzgerald's friendship and rivalry continued throughout their lives.
"I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen."
-Ernest Hemingway
recognized as American classics. He is most well known for The Old Man and the Sea, The Sun Also Rises, and For Whom the Bell Tolls, and A Farewell to Arms. In Paris, Fitzgerald
met Ernest Hemingway, and the two formed a close,
lifelong friendship of "admiration and hostility." Their friendship was based largely on Fitzgerald's admiration for Hemingway’s work. Hemingway and Fitzgerald were influenced by each other. Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby the same year they had met. Hemingway read and enjoyed The Great Gatsby and became inspired to write larger texts. He decided that his next work should be a novel.
Hemingway also influenced Fitzgerald. As mentioned in Conrad's discussion, Fitzgerald once remarked, "It was Ernest Hemingway who developed to me, in conversation [and demonstrated in the last sentence of A Farewell to Arms] that the dying fall was preferable to the dramatic ending under certain conditions."
The relationship that Hemingway maintained with Fitzgerald had a substantial effect on his writing style. Their rivalry likely influenced Fitzgerald's later works. Hemingway wrote The Sun Also Rises shortly after he read The Great Gatsby. Hemingway wrote his first novel with The Great Gatsby in mind, and the novel was filled with anger and frustration directed at Fitzgerald. At that time, Hemingway was determined to write a more successful novel than The Great Gatsby. Hemingway and Fitzgerald's friendship and rivalry continued throughout their lives.
"I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen."
-Ernest Hemingway
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The Lost Generation
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The "Lost Generation" was the generation who reached adulthood during and after World War I. The term specifically referred to a group of writers and artists during and after World War I; these writers and artists felt disillusioned in the new world that developed after the war. The term was popularized by Ernest Hemingway; he credits the phrase to Gertrude Stein, who was then his mentor. The "Lost Generation" became popular when Hemingway used the term as an epigraph for his novel The Sun Also Rises. This group included authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Ernest Hemingway. Members had social connections with one another and would sometimes meet to discuss their works.
World War I changed American attitudes, causing many young adults in the country to feel purposeless and without direction. These new attitudes caused many cultural changes in the 1920's, including literature. Writers felt that earlier writing styles were no longer valid since the world had changed drastically after the war. Aside from the loss of innocence caused by World War I, the group mostly shared the characteristics of literary modernism, which opposed realism. Instead, characters' subjective experiences were portrayed through psychological techniques and symbolism.
The Great Gatsby was the first major literary work produced by a member of the
Lost Generation. The Great Gatsby depicted the 1920's realistically from an American's perspective. Fitzgerald's writing defined the 1920's, an era he himself named "the Jazz Age." Many critics argue that The Great Gatsby was the first mature body of
literature to come from the United States. The Great Gatsby is an early example of the modernist techniques of the Lost Generation, using symbolism in the description of the "valley of ashes."
World War I changed American attitudes, causing many young adults in the country to feel purposeless and without direction. These new attitudes caused many cultural changes in the 1920's, including literature. Writers felt that earlier writing styles were no longer valid since the world had changed drastically after the war. Aside from the loss of innocence caused by World War I, the group mostly shared the characteristics of literary modernism, which opposed realism. Instead, characters' subjective experiences were portrayed through psychological techniques and symbolism.
The Great Gatsby was the first major literary work produced by a member of the
Lost Generation. The Great Gatsby depicted the 1920's realistically from an American's perspective. Fitzgerald's writing defined the 1920's, an era he himself named "the Jazz Age." Many critics argue that The Great Gatsby was the first mature body of
literature to come from the United States. The Great Gatsby is an early example of the modernist techniques of the Lost Generation, using symbolism in the description of the "valley of ashes."