0:00:22.514,0:00:23.816
Arrogant,

0:00:24.096,0:00:25.204
racist,

0:00:25.474,0:00:27.125
misogynist,

0:00:27.575,0:00:29.216
narcissist,

0:00:29.516,0:00:31.333
self-absorbed,

0:00:32.383,0:00:33.906
self-centered.

0:00:34.596,0:00:39.215
Who's being described[br]in these deeply unflattering terms?

0:00:40.485,0:00:42.344
Ernest Hemingway.

0:00:42.694,0:00:46.765
Yes, Ernest Hemingway,[br]the most famous American writer.

0:00:47.933,0:00:49.656
As an English teacher,

0:00:49.926,0:00:55.643
every year I think about,[br]Why do we still teach Hemingway?

0:00:56.243,0:01:00.205
I've published three[br]scholarly books on Hemingway,

0:01:00.205,0:01:04.444
and I've published, most recently,[br]three books on teaching Hemingway,

0:01:04.444,0:01:08.645
on the topics of war,[br]modernism and gender.

0:01:09.215,0:01:10.890
And yet every day,

0:01:10.890,0:01:15.085
I'm asked, "How can you[br]still be teaching Hemingway?"

0:01:16.314,0:01:18.196
Who was Hemingway?

0:01:18.636,0:01:22.595
Born in 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois,

0:01:22.955,0:01:25.254
he was brought up[br]in an upper middle-class family

0:01:25.254,0:01:28.913
with a physician father[br]and an opera-singer mother.

0:01:29.183,0:01:32.175
He pursued fishing, hunting,

0:01:33.605,0:01:37.265
journalism, boxing and football.

0:01:38.385,0:01:41.305
He enlisted in the Italian[br]Ambulance Corps,

0:01:41.305,0:01:47.064
and in 1918, he was the first American[br]wounded on the Italian Front.

0:01:48.204,0:01:51.543
He was twice decorated for valor.

0:01:52.703,0:01:57.195
He wrote about Paris and Spain[br]in "The Sun Also Rises."

0:01:57.645,0:02:02.355
He wrote about the Great War[br]in "A Farewell to Arms."

0:02:03.295,0:02:07.075
He wrote the first English-language[br]guidebook to the bullfights

0:02:07.075,0:02:09.487
in "Death in the Afternoon."

0:02:10.227,0:02:14.284
He wrote about hunting[br]in "Green Hills of Africa,"

0:02:14.284,0:02:19.374
and covered the Spanish Civil War[br]and wrote "For Whom the Bell Tolls."

0:02:20.134,0:02:25.794
After buying his boat, Pilar, he had[br]four world records in big-game fishing

0:02:25.794,0:02:28.316
and wrote "The Old Man and the Sea."

0:02:29.066,0:02:33.305
He was married four times[br]and had numerous girlfriends.

0:02:33.745,0:02:35.979
He covered the D-Day invasion,

0:02:35.979,0:02:37.994
the Battle of the Bulge,

0:02:38.364,0:02:42.545
and he died by suicide

0:02:42.545,0:02:45.375
after winning[br]the Nobel Prize for Literature.

0:02:46.885,0:02:51.183
Yet Hemingway comes to us[br]as a conflicted figure,

0:02:51.183,0:02:53.455
somebody who performed masculinity

0:02:53.455,0:02:58.374
at a time when gender roles[br]were shifting in American culture

0:02:58.374,0:03:00.856
and women were taking on[br]a more dominant role

0:03:00.856,0:03:05.814
and men felt the need[br]to strengthen their role.

0:03:06.624,0:03:09.155
So Hemingway established his reputation

0:03:09.155,0:03:13.035
in many ways through[br]the manufacturing of different images.

0:03:13.345,0:03:17.276
Here we see Hemingway[br]as the wounded soldier.

0:03:17.884,0:03:21.495
He had 54 pieces of shrapnel in his knee.

0:03:22.013,0:03:23.333
He looks heroic,

0:03:23.333,0:03:27.366
but he was blown up while[br]passing out chocolate and cigarettes.

0:03:28.714,0:03:32.094
Here's Hemingway on safari in Africa.

0:03:32.934,0:03:38.265
You can now buy kudu horns[br]like that for $20 on eBay.

0:03:39.555,0:03:44.764
Here's Hemingway pursuing his passion[br]for big-game fishing on the Gulf Stream.

0:03:45.084,0:03:48.235
The meat from that 486-pound marlin

0:03:48.495,0:03:50.145
went to waste.

0:03:52.035,0:03:55.653
He passionately pursued[br]the bullfights in Spain.

0:03:56.123,0:03:59.877
For many, the bullfights[br]are needless cruelty

0:03:59.877,0:04:03.045
and not a cultural celebration.

0:04:05.025,0:04:11.035
He covered the wars -[br]in Spain, in Italy and in France -

0:04:11.215,0:04:14.646
and afterwards suffered[br]post-traumatic stress disorder.

0:04:16.286,0:04:20.425
He had many encounters with women[br]and was married four times.

0:04:20.905,0:04:22.912
He was not a good father.

0:04:24.612,0:04:26.897
And, of course, there was the drinking.

0:04:26.897,0:04:31.295
His alcoholism contributed[br]to his manic depression

0:04:31.295,0:04:34.284
and perhaps to his suicide.

0:04:36.884,0:04:41.305
So, Hemingway learned[br]to perform masculinity.

0:04:41.625,0:04:44.374
He created a manufactured image

0:04:44.374,0:04:48.354
that told the viewer[br]that he was living life to the fullest;

0:04:48.514,0:04:51.225
that he was living an authentic life,

0:04:51.225,0:04:56.564
and you, sitting at home,[br]perhaps, were not.

0:04:57.154,0:05:00.425
And this image was sold in the media.

0:05:00.425,0:05:02.545
Hemingway's face appeared on magazines

0:05:02.545,0:05:05.956
that were aimed[br]towards educated audiences,

0:05:05.956,0:05:09.067
such as Time and Life.

0:05:09.987,0:05:12.051
But more significantly,

0:05:12.251,0:05:15.195
Hemingway's image[br]was sold to mass audiences

0:05:15.195,0:05:18.842
in these glossy, slick magazines.

0:05:19.302,0:05:22.315
For many, he became a representative man,

0:05:22.315,0:05:27.505
again, at a time when what it meant[br]to be a man was being contested,

0:05:27.505,0:05:29.625
as women were emerging in the work force

0:05:29.625,0:05:34.066
and there were transitions[br]in home and in the workplace.

0:05:36.436,0:05:41.036
Thus, with all that is so problematic[br]about Hemingway,

0:05:41.036,0:05:44.265
why do we still teach him today?

0:05:44.685,0:05:48.545
I turn to "A Farewell to Arms," [br]in many ways, as the best example

0:05:48.545,0:05:52.595
of why we still teach Hemingway[br]to today's students.

0:05:52.905,0:05:56.364
It has the literary themes and the style

0:05:56.364,0:06:00.135
to help students best understand[br]Hemingway's world.

0:06:00.595,0:06:03.490
For students - right? -

0:06:03.490,0:06:09.305
to read Hemingway is a sign[br]of something that is cool, cynical,

0:06:09.615,0:06:11.417
perhaps self-destructive -

0:06:11.417,0:06:13.315
something that they're attracted to

0:06:13.315,0:06:17.596
for reasons they may not quite[br]be able to articulate.

0:06:17.876,0:06:23.124
But once they are dropped into[br]the rainy, war-torn landscape of Italy

0:06:23.124,0:06:27.785
and understand the troubled world[br]of Frederic and Catherine,

0:06:27.785,0:06:32.333
they recognize that[br]a "Farewell to Arms" is a great novel.

0:06:33.023,0:06:34.835
What makes it great?

0:06:34.835,0:06:36.884
Well, for many of us,

0:06:36.884,0:06:42.595
it is because Hemingway incorporates[br]the aesthetic principles of Paul Cezanne

0:06:42.595,0:06:46.225
into his aesthetic code.

0:06:46.835,0:06:53.316
In 1924, Hemingway first saw[br]Cezanne's paintings

0:06:53.316,0:06:56.327
at the salon of Gertrude Stein, in Paris,

0:06:56.327,0:06:59.531
at a time when he was forming[br]his own aesthetic philosophy,

0:06:59.531,0:07:00.865
when he was trying to decide

0:07:00.865,0:07:05.016
what he wanted to do[br]with his own brand of art.

0:07:05.936,0:07:10.685
He wrote, "He wanted to write[br]like Cezanne painted.

0:07:11.205,0:07:13.825
Cezanne started with all the the tricks.

0:07:13.825,0:07:18.035
Then he broke the whole thing down[br]and built the real thing.

0:07:18.375,0:07:20.074
It was hell to do ...

0:07:20.464,0:07:22.403
He wanted to write about country

0:07:22.403,0:07:26.085
so that it would be there[br]like Cezanne had done it in painting.

0:07:26.085,0:07:29.073
You had to do it from inside yourself.

0:07:29.073,0:07:31.414
There wasn't any trick.

0:07:31.414,0:07:34.903
Nobody had ever written[br]about country like that.

0:07:34.903,0:07:37.855
He felt almost holy about it.

0:07:38.415,0:07:40.267
It was deadly serious.

0:07:40.917,0:07:43.485
You could do it if you would fight it out.

0:07:43.485,0:07:46.705
If you'd lived right with your eyes."

0:07:49.605,0:07:52.683
Cezanne was a French[br]Post-Impressionist painter,

0:07:53.003,0:07:54.125
and in his paintings,

0:07:54.125,0:07:59.255
he's using short, repetitive,[br]concentrated brushstrokes

0:07:59.255,0:08:02.195
to break down the plane of the painting.

0:08:02.195,0:08:05.655
It's a lesson that Hemingway[br]was to learn from him.

0:08:06.765,0:08:12.104
We could turn first to the opening pages[br]of "A Farewell to Arms."

0:08:13.374,0:08:17.506
"In the late summer of that year[br]we lived in a house in a village

0:08:17.506,0:08:20.805
that looked across the river[br]and the plain to the mountains.

0:08:20.805,0:08:23.425
In the bed of the river[br]there were pebbles and boulders,

0:08:23.425,0:08:25.267
dry and white in the sun,

0:08:25.267,0:08:30.375
and the water was clear and swiftly moving[br]and blue in the channels.

0:08:30.375,0:08:32.387
Troops went by the house and down the road

0:08:32.387,0:08:35.522
and the dust they raised[br]powdered the leaves of the trees.

0:08:35.522,0:08:38.414
The trunks of the trees too were dusty

0:08:38.414,0:08:40.943
and the leaves fell early that year

0:08:40.943,0:08:43.923
and we saw the troops[br]marching along the road

0:08:43.923,0:08:46.346
and the dust rising

0:08:46.346,0:08:49.875
and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling

0:08:49.875,0:08:52.024
and the soldiers marching

0:08:52.024,0:08:56.984
and afterward the road bare and white[br]except for the leaves."

0:08:57.274,0:09:00.264
Notice the repetition[br]of Hemingway's language:

0:09:00.264,0:09:05.205
he's repeating words[br]like Cezanne is using brushstrokes.

0:09:06.655,0:09:09.234
We have the word "water" twice,

0:09:09.754,0:09:12.416
"dust" three times,

0:09:12.796,0:09:15.195
"leaves" four,

0:09:15.685,0:09:18.063
"white" twice.

0:09:18.783,0:09:25.343
Notice, too, we have things that rise[br]and are raised, fall and are falling.

0:09:26.683,0:09:27.704
Hemingway is showing

0:09:27.704,0:09:31.095
the interconnectedness[br]of the natural world:

0:09:31.095,0:09:37.635
because of the way that the dust rises,[br]the leaves fall early that year -

0:09:37.635,0:09:41.895
showing us how the war[br]has disrupted the natural cycles;

0:09:42.025,0:09:45.106
nature is damaged by war.

0:09:46.696,0:09:49.756
Notice, too, how Hemingway uses motion.

0:09:49.756,0:09:51.755
This is part of the trick of Cezanne:

0:09:51.755,0:09:57.604
to capture life in motion on a canvas.

0:09:57.934,0:10:00.424
We have the soldiers marching,

0:10:00.424,0:10:02.486
we have the water flowing,

0:10:02.486,0:10:04.544
we have the dust rising,

0:10:04.544,0:10:07.133
and we have the leaves falling.

0:10:07.133,0:10:10.406
And afterward, everything bare and white.

0:10:11.736,0:10:15.614
Hemingway is trying to capture[br]a dominant idea of nature,

0:10:15.614,0:10:21.435
to show how everything[br]is elementally connected.

0:10:22.645,0:10:23.865
From Cezanne,

0:10:23.865,0:10:29.125
Hemingway learned that these short,[br]concentrated brushstrokes - right? -

0:10:29.635,0:10:33.836
would just, in the same way,[br]be employed in his writing.

0:10:33.836,0:10:35.866
As you look at a Cezanne canvas,

0:10:35.866,0:10:39.455
you can see how his brushstrokes[br]give us a house,

0:10:39.455,0:10:42.853
perhaps a roof, perhaps a tree

0:10:42.853,0:10:45.036
in the same way[br]that Hemingway's words -

0:10:45.036,0:10:50.715
dust, leaves, wind -

0:10:50.715,0:10:56.775
give us that same sense of motion[br]as we get in a Cezanne canvas.

0:10:58.495,0:11:03.494
So, as we think about[br]why we still teach Hemingway's fiction,

0:11:03.814,0:11:06.235
we see, with students,

0:11:06.625,0:11:11.693
that they embrace[br]Hemingway's realism as their own;

0:11:12.033,0:11:14.853
they hear it and it echoes.

0:11:15.243,0:11:19.104
As they navigate the cold world of adults

0:11:19.104,0:11:21.785
and the treacherous world of teenagers,

0:11:21.785,0:11:24.964
they find lessons in Hemingway.

0:11:26.444,0:11:31.705
In the words of a legendary English[br]teacher at Phillips Exeter Academy,

0:11:31.705,0:11:33.396
Harvard Knowles:

0:11:33.396,0:11:37.325
"In giving us stories that root us[br]in our own experiences,

0:11:37.325,0:11:39.806
Hemingway shows us not only who we are

0:11:39.806,0:11:44.225
but also forces us to consider[br]what we may become.

0:11:44.665,0:11:49.135
What greater teacher[br]could we possibly want for our young?"

0:11:50.695,0:11:51.975
Bully,

0:11:52.495,0:11:53.586
racist,

0:11:54.036,0:11:55.266
narcissist,

0:11:55.266,0:11:58.955
misogynist, obnoxious and self-centered.

0:11:59.765,0:12:03.666
Yes, we have to reconcile the tension

0:12:03.666,0:12:09.676
between an image that is so ugly[br]and an art that is so beautiful,

0:12:09.996,0:12:15.404
and the role of regressive masculinity[br]in American culture.

0:12:15.404,0:12:17.786
Yet Hemingway endures - right? -

0:12:17.786,0:12:21.123
his best writing endures[br]because he teaches us lessons

0:12:21.123,0:12:24.324
about how to live according to our values

0:12:24.324,0:12:27.916
and what it means to be human today.

0:12:28.386,0:12:29.773
Thank you.

0:12:29.773,0:12:31.614
(Applause)