Writers in Paris in the 1920s refer to the American expatriate writers in Paris in the 1920s. They created literary works and movements that influence the global literary landscape to date. During the 1920s, political, economic, and social issues shaped the inspiration behind many of the writers in Paris. The American writers in Paris in the 1920s are referred to as the Lost Generation.
Although the crisis of the post-world war context led to a decrease in cultural and artistic flare during the 1920s in Paris, the political, social and economic situation in France inspired the movement which was to be The Lost Generation (Les Années Folles) Although coined by Gertrude Stein, [1] it was Ernest Hemingway who promulgated this term. [2] The Lost Generation was a collectivised recognition of the aimlessness, confusion and grief experienced by the survivors and civilians of the war. In particular, the Lost Generation encompassed American expatriate writers in Paris within the 1920s. During the 1920s, Paris became the epicentre of culture, embracing extravagance, diversity and creativity. Artists such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, flocked from all over the world towards Paris, by this time the hotspot of expression and instrument of artistic direction. The Lost Generation all shared the post-war griefs of losing their loved ones, innocence and sense of pride. However, one thing that was most certainly not lost but in fact learned, was the sense of artistic expression characterised by the disillusionment and pessimism of the end of the First World War. Numerous Individuals became part of the Lost Generation without any recognition. However, the Lost Generation of the 1920s produced some of the most famous writers to date. Gertrude Stein grew to foster the creativity of the artists and writers of the Lost Generation, hosting frequent meetings of those who took part. Not only were writers such as Hemingway and Fitzgerald a part of this, but also world-renowned artists such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Mattisse. [3]
Ernest Hemingway, although an American-born writer, moved to Paris on 22 December 1921. He embodied the experiences, cultural influences and literary styles and techniques of writers in the 1920s. Belonging to The Lost Generation, Hemingway contributed to some of the most important works of the 20th century. This would not have been possible without surrounding artists of the Lost Generation, such as Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Pablo Picasso, who proved to be central to his career. Within four years, Hemingway went from being an unknown individual to one of the most influential writers of the 20th century.
Gertrude Stein was an extremely influential member of French society in the 1920s. Having been an ambulance driver for the French during the first world war, her experiences characterised her artistic prowess and inspired her passion for self-expression. Stein established an artistic salon in her Paris apartment in which she would often host prominent artists and writers of Paris. Stein had a reciprocal relationship with those by whom she was surrounded. Such was exhibited in her adoption of the styles of Cubism and Abstraction within her writing, techniques derived from Pablo Picasso. The death of Stein's mother when she was just fourteen inspired her writing, one example being her work The Making of Americans (1925).
One of the most prominent figures of "The Lost Generation", Scott Fitzgerald is contemporarily referred to as one of the most influential American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda moved to Paris in the attempt to escape the financial woes and burdens endowed to them by the extravagance of their lifestyle in the previous years. This move proved to fuel Fitzgerald's literary prowess as he was bombarded with new ideas, cultural differences and a network of prominent artists.
Alongside prominent American Expatriate writers within Paris, Djuana Barnes was a significant illustrator, artist, and author to the literary landscape of the 1920s in Paris. As a product of her abusive childhood, [4] Barnes' life was shaped around the desires of her father. The violence and trauma she endured as a child through instances such as rape and forcible marriage to her Father's mistress's brother, would go on to provide the impetus for inspiration and expression in her writing. Barnes' career, although loosely established prior to the 1920s, only flourished when she moved to Paris in 1921. Her experimental short stories referenced in Spillaway [4] signified the beginning of her literary success in Paris. Barnes spiralled into alcoholic dependency and depression following her break up with Thelma Wood, whose infidelity and alcoholism tore apart their passionate relationship. One of Barnes' most famous works is Ladies Almanack, originally published in 1928, later developed into a film in 2017.
Kay Boyle was an American expatriate writer, novelist and activist who moved to Paris in 1923 following the devastation bought to her family during the interwar period. Although she spent much of her childhood in Europe, she moved to Cincinnati with her family in due to financial problems faced by her family. Amongst the writers of the Lost Generation, Boyle was among the most profilific and her works have continued to have significance even after her death in 1992. Boyle was particularly acclaimed for her collection of Short Stories and referenced by film critic Ann Hornaday as a survivor of the "Halcon Days of Paris in the 1920s". [5]
The literary works of writers in the 1920s in Paris would go on to influence a contemporary audience and have proven to remain relevant despite a significant cultural shift.
Hemingway's novel The Sun Also Rises (1926) summated life for writers in Paris throughout the 1920s. [6] This novel re-evaluates themes such as the aimlessness of the Lost Generation, the concept of male insecurity, and, (as said by William Adair in his essay; "The Sun Also Rises; A Memory of War"), the destructiveness of sex. The ideas in this novel are so profound and provocative that it was banned in cities in the United States, as well as Nazi Germany for "being a monument of modern decadence". [7]
The Waste Land , by T.S. Eliot, is one of the most renowned poetic pieces to emerge from the 20th century. It is the cornerstone of Modernist writing. It includes the themes of war, disillusionment, trauma and death. It is a poem divided into five sections. It is a significant work which is devoted to the experiences of writers living in Paris in the 1920s, inspired by the loss of moral and cultural identity established by the backlash of World War One. The title is significant, a metaphor for the physical and psychological devastation experienced by Europe, and, particularly Paris in the mid-war period.
Although not written in the 1920s, one book which pays tribute to the sentiment within Paris in the 1920s is Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast (1964). The novel focuses on the weather in Paris in the 1920s as a metaphor to encapsulate the disillusionment brought by the first World War. Like many works dedicated to Paris in the 1920s, this novel references Gertrude Stein's home at 27 Rue de Fleurs, the hub of literary collaboration and inspiration. 'A Moveable Feast' references the role Stein played as a mentor to Hemingway, a hugely influential entity to the artistic, particularly literary community within Paris in the 1920s.
Gertrude Stein's work The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933) is rather an analysis of herself than the suggested subject, her partner Alice B.Toklas. It summarises her life before and during her move to Paris and the effects this had on her identity, writing and relationships. In particular, it is a comparison of life in pre-war California and post-war Paris in the 1920s. although published in 1933, it contextualises Paris in the 1920s, the commonly shared experience of an American expatriate within this time and the influences of 1920 Paris on not only her own but the art of all those who surrounded her, particularly members of "The Lost Generation".
Alongside the labour shortages of the First World War, the emergence of technology and urbanisation, came the search for financial opportunities and the redefining of economics. As a response to this shift in perspective and values, Modernism emerged as a new movement of literary expression particularly catalysed by artists of the Lost Generation.
The principles and key tenets first embodied by works of the Lost Generation in Paris in the 1920s included not only the expression of political disillusionment, but also a collective rejection of authoritarian values. Such a concept inspired the "Beat Generation" of the 1950s and 1960s, as the post- World War II era led to the rejection of conventional societies on behalf of artists in this time.
The immense influence of Writers in Paris in the 1920s on subsequent literature Is effectively captured in award winning works. Woody Allen's 2011 film, Midnight in Paris , is inspired by literary works produced in Paris in the 1920s such as Hemingway's A Moveable Feast . It pays homage to the literary landscape in Paris in the 1920s and references writers of this period such as Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Zelda Fitzgerald.
The legacies of both F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald remain highly significant in contemporary society. The Television series, Z: The beginning of everything, that spanned from 2015 to 2017, is a fictional biography which follows the early life of both F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald, and what would result in their turbulent love affair. It follows the life of writers in Paris in the 1920s, the close associates of the Fitzgeralds, and what it meant to experience the tensions of a War ridden society first-hand.
The Making of Americans is a novel which was officially published in 1925 by Gertrude Stein. Although set in a fictional world, its plot mimics her own personal experiences of immigration in the interwar period. The novel entails repetition as its main technique and a limited use of vocabulary. It has been the centre of literary conversation until present. It is widely criticised as "lacking in form, consistency and coherency". [8]
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which included his iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his adventurous lifestyle and public image brought him admiration from later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and he was awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature. He published seven novels, six short-story collections, and two nonfiction works. Three of his novels, four short-story collections, and three nonfiction works were published posthumously. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature.
The Lost Generation was the social generational cohort in the Western world that was in early adulthood during World War I, and preceding the Greatest Generation. The generation is generally defined as people born from 1883 to 1900, coming of age in either the 1900s or the 1910s. The term is also particularly used to refer to a group of American expatriate writers living in Paris during the 1920s. Gertrude Stein is credited with coining the term, and it was subsequently popularised by Ernest Hemingway, who used it in the epigraph for his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises: "You are all a lost generation." "Lost" in this context refers to the "disoriented, wandering, directionless" spirit of many of the war's survivors in the early postwar period.
Gertrude Stein was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris in 1903, and made France her home for the remainder of her life. She hosted a Paris salon, where the leading figures of modernism in literature and art, such as Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Ezra Pound, Sherwood Anderson and Henri Matisse, would meet.
Edward Morley Callaghan was a Canadian novelist, short story writer, playwright, and TV and radio personality.
A Moveable Feast is a 1964 memoir by American author Ernest Hemingway about his years as a struggling expatriate journalist and writer in Paris during the 1920s. It was published posthumously. The book details Hemingway's first marriage to Hadley Richardson and his associations with other cultural figures of the Lost Generation in Interwar France.
Zelda Fitzgerald was an American novelist, painter, playwright, and socialite. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, to a wealthy Southern family, she became locally famous for her beauty and high spirits. In 1920, she married writer F. Scott Fitzgerald after the popular success of his debut novel, This Side of Paradise. The novel catapulted the young couple into the public eye, and she became known in the national press as the first American flapper. Due to their wild antics and incessant partying, she and her husband became regarded in the newspapers as the enfants terribles of the Jazz Age. Alleged infidelity and bitter recriminations soon undermined their marriage. After traveling abroad to Europe, Zelda's mental health deteriorated, and she had suicidal and homicidal tendencies which required psychiatric care. Her doctors diagnosed Zelda with schizophrenia, although later posthumous diagnoses posit bipolar disorder.
The Sun Also Rises is the first novel by the American writer Ernest Hemingway. It portrays American and British expatriates who travel along the Camino de Santiago from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona and watch the running of the bulls and the bullfights. An early modernist novel, it received mixed reviews upon publication. Hemingway biographer Jeffrey Meyers writes that it is now "recognized as Hemingway's greatest work" and Hemingway scholar Linda Wagner-Martin calls it his most important novel. The novel was published in the United States in October 1926 by Scribner's. A year later, Jonathan Cape published the novel in London under the title Fiesta. It remains in print.
Malcolm Cowley was an American writer, editor, historian, poet, and literary critic. His best known works include his first book of poetry, Blue Juniata (1929), and his memoir, Exile's Return, written as a chronicler and fellow traveller of the Lost Generation and an influential editor and talent scout at Viking Press.
This Side of Paradise is the debut novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1920. It examines the lives and morality of carefree American youth at the dawn of the Jazz Age. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, is an attractive middle-class student at Princeton University who dabbles in literature and engages in a series of romances with flappers. The novel explores the theme of love warped by greed and status-seeking, and takes its title from a line of Rupert Brooke's poem Tiare Tahiti.
Gerald Clery Murphy and Sara Sherman Wiborg were wealthy, expatriate Americans who moved to the French Riviera in the early 20th century and who, with their generous hospitality and flair for parties, created a vibrant social circle, particularly in the 1920s, that included a great number of artists and writers of the Lost Generation. Gerald had a brief but significant career as a painter.
Robert Menzies McAlmon was an American writer, poet, and publisher. In the 1920s, he founded in Paris the publishing house, Contact Editions, where he published writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, James Joyce and Ezra Pound.
Janet Flanner was an American writer and pioneering narrative journalist who served as the Paris correspondent of The New Yorker magazine from 1925 until she retired in 1975. She wrote under the pen name "Genêt". She also published a single novel, The Cubical City, set in New York City. She was a prominent member of America's expatriate community living in Paris before WWII. Along with her longtime partner Solita Solano, Flanner was called "a defining force in the creative expat scene in Paris." She returned to New York during the war and split her time between there and Paris until her death in 1978.
The Moderns is a 1988 film by Alan Rudolph, which takes place in 1926 Paris during the period of the Lost Generation and at the height of modernist literature. The film stars Keith Carradine, Linda Fiorentino, John Lone, and Geneviève Bujold among others.
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularized in his short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age. During his lifetime, he published four novels, four story collections, and 164 short stories. Although he achieved temporary popular success and fortune in the 1920s, Fitzgerald received critical acclaim only after his death and is now widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.
Midnight in Paris is a 2011 fantasy comedy film written and directed by Woody Allen. Set in Paris, the film follows Gil Pender, a screenwriter, who is forced to confront the shortcomings of his relationship with his materialistic fiancée and their divergent goals, which become increasingly exaggerated as he travels back in time each night at midnight.
27 rue de Fleurus was the home of the American writer Gertrude Stein and her partner Alice B. Toklas from 1903 to 1938. It is in the 6th arrondissement of Paris on the Left Bank. It was also the home of Gertrude's brother Leo Stein for a time in the early 20th century. It was a renowned Saturday evening gathering place for avant-garde artists and writers, notably Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway.
James Robert Mellow was an American art critic and biographer. After starting his art career in the mid 1950s, Mellow primarily worked in editorial positions for Arts Magazine and Industrial Design during the 1960s. As an art critic from the mid 1960s to mid 1970s, Mellow worked for The New Leader, Art International, and The New York Times. Apart from art, Mellow became a biographer in 1974 when he released a biography on Gertrude Stein.
Shakespeare and Company was an influential English-language bookstore in Paris founded by Sylvia Beach in 1919; Beach published James Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses at the bookstore. The store closed in 1941.
"Echoes of the Jazz Age" is a short essay by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald that was first published in Scribner's Magazine in November 1931. The essay analyzes the societal conditions in the United States which gave rise to the raucous historical era known as the Jazz Age and the subsequent events which led to the era's abrupt conclusion. The frequently anthologized essay represents an extended critique by Fitzgerald of 1920s hedonism and is regarded as one of Fitzgerald's finest non-fiction works.