Tuesday, October 3, 17. Fitzgerald and the 1920s

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1 Fitzgerald and the 1920s

2 F. Scott Fitzgerald ( )

3 Fitzgerald s Novels This Side of Paradise, 1920 The Beautiful and Damned, 1922 The Great Gatsby, 1925 Tender Is the Night, 1934 The Last Tycoon, 1941

6 This Side of Paradise Coming of age novel Amory Blaine goes to Princeton, then to war, and finally back to Princeton His mother dies; his mentor (Monsignor Darcy) dies; several friends die (and one disappears); the girl he loves dumps him to marry a rich man she doesn t love; another girl turns out to be crazy

7 This Side of Paradise Fitzgerald wrote to his publisher that the title comes from lines of Rupert Brookes (Tiare Tahiti): Well, this side of paradise There s little comfort in the wise. Other epigraph from Oscar Wilde: Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes.

8 Pacifism and Human Nature I get to the end of all the logic about non-resistance, and there, like an excluded middle, stands the huge spectre of man as he is and always will be.

9 Pacifism and Human Nature And this spectre stands right beside the one logical necessity of Tolstoi s and the other logical necessity of Nietzsche s

10 Morality If we could only learn to look on evil as evil, whether it s clothed in filth or monotony or magnificence.

11 Leaving for War And what we leave here is more than this class; it s the whole heritage of youth. We re just one generation we re breaking all the links that seemed to bind us here...

12 Change Here, Heraclitus, did you find in fire and shifting things the prophecy you hurled down the dead years; this midnight my desire will see, shadowed among the embers, furled in flame, the splendor and the sadness of the world.

13 The Final Chapter the loss of faith of the heirs of progress

14 Moral Drift Q. Where are you drifting? A. Don't ask me! Q. Don't you care? A. Rather. I don't want to commit moral suicide. Q. Have you no interests left? A. None. I've no more virtue to lose. Just as a cooling pot gives off heat, so all through youth and adolescence we give off calories of virtue. That's what's called ingenuousness.

15 Good and evil Q. Are you corrupt? A. I think so. I'm not sure. I'm not sure about good and evil at all any more.

16 Innocence I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.

17 No more heroes There were no more wise men; there were no more heroes; Burne Holiday was sunk from sight as though he had never lived; Monsignor was dead. Amory had grown up to a thousand books, a thousand lies; he had listened eagerly to people who pretended to know, who knew nothing.

18 Life Life was a damned muddle... a football game with every one off-side and the referee gotten rid of every one claiming the referee would have been on his side...

19 The Romantic Elf He found something that he wanted, that he had always wanted and always would want not to be admired, as he had feared; not to be loved, as he had made himself believe; but to be necessary to people, to be indispensable...

20 Epiphany Life opened up in one of its amazing bursts of radiance and Amory suddenly and permanently rejected an old epigram that had been playing listlessly in his mind: "Very few things matter and nothing matters very much." On the contrary, Amory felt an immense desire to give people a sense of security.

21 Two Kinds of People Spiritually married take human nature as they find it Spiritually unmarried continually seeks new systems that will control or counteract human nature

22 Dream As an endless dream it went on; the spirit of the past brooding over a new generation, the chosen youth from the muddled, unchastened world, still fed romantically on the mistakes and half-forgotten dreams of dead statesmen and poets.

23 New generation Here was a new generation, shouting the old cries, learning the old creeds, through a revery of long days and nights; destined finally to go out into that dirty gray turmoil to follow love and pride; a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken...

24 Disillusionment There was no God in his heart, he knew; his ideas were still in riot; there was ever the pain of memory; the regret for his lost youth yet the waters of disillusion had left a deposit on his soul, responsibility and a love of life, the faint stirring of old ambitions and unrealized dreams.

25 Know thyself "I know myself," he cried, "but that is all."

THERES NOTHING TO MENTION AND WE COULD STAND UP TO FIGHT AGAIN OH NO WORDS CAN SET YOU THIS COULD BE MY LAST PARADE x 5 AND YOU WONT HAVE ANYONE x 8

THERES NOTHING TO MENTION AND WE COULD STAND UP TO FIGHT AGAIN OH NO WORDS CAN SET YOU THIS COULD BE MY LAST PARADE x 5 AND YOU WONT HAVE ANYONE x 8 I HEAR YOU WEPT RIGHT WHERE WE BOTH JUST SLEPT AND EVERYONE KNOWS TAKE THESE PHOTOS AND LEAVES FROM I DONT HAVE ANY NEED JUST NOW I HEAR YOU WEPT RIGHT WHERE WE BOTH JUST SLEPT AND EVERYONE KNOWS TAKE