Paris in the 1920’s – “The Lost Generation”
Between the end of the First World War and Hitler's seizure of power a cultural explosion occurred in Paris that altered our notions of art and reality and shaped our way of viewing the world ever since. In the 1920's, Paris became the undisputed international capital of pleasure and was regarded as the cultural and artistic center of Europe with a reputation for staging one of its most glamorous eras, as well as some of the most spectacular revues in the world. Imagine for a moment, that it really is 1920's Paris. You are leisurely strolling through the gas lit promenades. World War I is over and the exuberance of jazz musicians, symbolist painters, and American expatriates fills the “City of Light” with a buzz as sharp as electricity. The city revolves around nothing more than café life, drinking, and dining. A young, American man enters a small, smoky café that is popular among other expatriates. He is the world-famous novelist, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and he sits down next to Ernest Hemingway. The two authors begin a friendship that characterizes the artistic culture of 1920's Paris – an era described by Gertrude Stein as "where the twentieth century was."
Finding two artists like Fitzgerald and Hemingway pleasantly chatting together in a random bookstore or café in 1920's Paris was not unusual. Paris swarmed with a number of intellectuals, poets, and artists who had fled America seeking a less materialistic and more uncomplicated lifestyle. Paris was the center of it all. It became a breeding ground for the arts and for some of America's greatest authors, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, E.E. Cummings, John Dos Passos, Ezra ...
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N/A. “Searching for Ernest Hemingway’s Paris.” http://www.thaiair.com/flying/aroundworld/aroundworld-06.htm. Around the World with Thai Airways International.
This is a good site because it talks a lot about how Ernest Hemingway saw Paris during the time he was living there, so you can get a good picture of it yourself. It also talks a little bit about modern day Paris and some of the historical places that still remain today from the 1920’s.
N/A. http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~garychapman/paris.html. (Home Page)
I thought this was a neat site to include because it describes the fashion and costume design of the 1920’s in Paris. There are some good pictures to look at that help you to get a better idea of how Parisian women typically dressed. However, it only focuses on one woman, Dolly Tree, so it is a bit limited.
Petrie, Dennis and Boggs, Joseph. The Art of Watching Films. New York: McGraw Hill, 2012.
Certain authors, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, wanted to reflect the horrors that the world had experienced not a decade ago. In 1914, one of the most destructive and pointless wars in history plagued the world: World War I. This war destroyed a whole generation of young men, something one would refer to as the “Lost Generation”. Modernism was a time that allowed the barbarity of the war to simmer down and eventually, disappear altogether. One such author that thrived in this period was F. Scott Fitzgerald, a young poet and author who considered himself the best of his time. One could say that this self-absorption was what fueled his drive to be the most famous modernist the world had seen. As The New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean mentions in her literary summary of Fitzgerald’s works, “I didn’t know till fifteen that there was anyone in the world except me, and it cost me plenty” (Orlean xi). One of the key factors that influenced and shaped Fitzgerald’s writing was World War I, with one of his most famous novels, This Side Of Paradise, being published directly after the war in 1920. Yet his most famous writing was the book, The Great Gatsby, a novel about striving to achieve the American dream, except finding out when succeeding that this dream was not a desire at all. Fitzgerald himself lived a life full of partying and traveling the world. According to the Norton Anthology of American Literature, “In the 1920’s and 1930’s F. Scott Fitzgerald was equally equally famous as a writer and as a celebrity author whose lifestyle seemed to symbolize the two decades; in the 1920’s he stood for all-night partying, drinking, and the pursuit of pleasure while in the 1930’s he stood for the gloomy aftermath of excess” (Baym 2124). A fur...
The American Dream and the decay of American values has been one of the most popular topics in American fiction in the 20th century. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises create a full picture of American failure and pursue its ideals after the end of World War I by portraying the main characters as outsiders and describing the transportation in a symbolic way. Putting the aimless journeys for material life foreground, Fitzgerald and Hemingway skillfully link West and men and associate East to not only money but women. As American modernists, Hemingway utilizes his simple and dialog-oriented writing to appeal to readers and Fitzgerald ambiguously portrays Gatsby through a narrator, Nick, to cynically describe American virtue and corruption, which substantially contribute to modernism in literature.
The very start of World War I brought the culture of the twentieth century to a world of the new ages. The abrupt start of the war brought conflict and confusion. This sudden flash of reality and birth of new technology whirled into a frenzy of madness that introduced the idea of demoralization. It was the beginning of Modernism which many American authors jumped into. One of them was Scott Fitzgerald who was heavily known for his greatest piece The Great Gatsby, in which a man takes a tight grip onto his past and tries to relive the life he yearned for. At the same time, this novel is being clashed with themes of loneliness and demoralization of the characters and the division of social classes.
The personal connection Americans have with their phones, tablets, and computers; and the rising popularity of online shopping and social websites due to the massive influence the social media has on Americans, it is clear why this generation is called the Information Age, also known as Digital Age. With the Internet being a huge part of our lives, more and more personal data is being made available, because of our ever-increasing dependence and use of the Internet on our phones, tablets, and computers. Some corporations such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook; governments, and other third parties have been tracking our internet use and acquiring data in order to provide personalized services and advertisements for consumers. Many American such as Nicholas Carr who wrote the article “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty, With Real Dangers,” Anil Dagar who wrote the article “Internet, Economy and Privacy,” and Grace Nasri who wrote the article “Why Consumers are Increasingly Willing to Trade Data for Personalization,” believe that the continuing loss of personal privacy may lead us as a society to devalue the concept of privacy and see privacy as outdated and unimportant. Privacy is dead and corporations, governments, and third parties murdered it for their personal gain not for the interest of the public as they claim. There are more disadvantages than advantages on letting corporations, governments, and third parties track and acquire data to personalized services and advertisements for us.
Kerman, Joseph, Gary Tomlinson, and Vivian Kerman. Listen. 7th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. Print.
Freeman S. (2004). In Style: Femininity and Fashion since the Victorian Era. Journal of Women's History; 16(4): 191–206
Lehman, Peter and Luhr, William. Thinking About Movies: Watching, Questioning, Enjoying. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003.
With the end of the first World War in the year 1918, many soldiers, young and old, came home to their families dark and cynical. Many famous authors of this time, like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, wrote short stories not of their times at war, but of how material the world truly is. These were considered the “Lost Generation,” due to their lack of belief in humans in general and their dreary outlook of life in general. F. Scott Fitzgerald is famous for his book, The Great Gatsby which showed how he as an author viewed the Roaring Twenties, as one of the main themes is the idea that the American Dream is dead and humans are fickle and obsessed with material things, like money. On the opposite end of the spectrum, though, was the bright young generation, which “came into power” shortly after the Lost Generation. These young people were full of bright ideas and with the American Economy is a good place, everyone seemed to be happy. Art and fashion changed drastically, w...
Various authors have varyingly explored the origins of the blues, as a genre, possibly because of its influence in modern-day music world. In fact, the blues significantly influence today’s music scene and it is common to find other music genres borrowing from the blues in terms of style, tunes, as well as other features. Nevertheless, the blues have emerged as a widespread genre since its inception in the United States in the early 19th century. It is believed to belong to the popular (commonly referred to as pop music) style of music. In addition, it is associated with African-American culture. This paper looks into the work of two authors (R. Palmer and W. Barlow) by comparing and contrasting their views about the origin of the blues as
...ke Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, who cast off the beliefs of post World War I America. Many of these thinkers moved to Paris and try to make find meaning in their meaningless lives. They would throw wild parties, "drink excessively, and have scandalous love affairs (Kaiser)." They gained prominent places in the twentieth century because of their spiritual alienation. Loss of faith may cause fame and fortune, as it did for the lost generation, but with this loss came inescapable emptiness.
Barsam, R. M., Monahan, D., & Gocsik, K. M. (2012). Looking at movies: an introduction to film (4th ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Co..
From the fiction of Hemingway, Virginia Woolf and John Dos Passos to the savagely critical paintings
Movies take us inside the skin of people quite different from ourselves and to places different from our routine surroundings. As humans, we always seek enlargement of our being and wanted to be more than ourselves. Each one of us, by nature, sees the world with a perspective and selectivity different from others. But, we want to see the world through other’s eyes; imagine with other’s imaginations; feel with other’s hearts, at a same time as with our own. Movies offer us a window onto the wider world, broadening our perspective and opening our eyes to new wonders.