American & Canadian Literature, General & Miscellaneous Literary Criticism, Sex Role
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Overview
Hemingway's Quarrel with Androgyny confronts the entrenched mystique surrounding the hard drinker, bullfighter, and creator of characters steeled by their own code. Spilka stresses Hemingway's lifelong dependence on and secret identification with women, and in doing so shatters the myths of male bonding and heroic lives of "men without women." He develops the biographical, literary, and cultural implications of Hemingway's lifelong quarrel with androgyny to reveal a more psychologically complex man and writer than the mystique has allowed.Editorials
Library Journal
It was inevitable that the posthumous publication of The Garden of Eden ( LJ 6/1/86) would spark new theories on Hemingway's personality. Spilka's psychological portrait follows a course similar to Kenneth Lynn's Hemingway ( LJ 7/87), who hypothesized that Ernest was subconsciously androgynous because his mother dressed him like a girl until he was two or three years old. Lynn tried to back up his argument with references to Hemingway's fiction and life, but very few swallowed it, and many even laughed. This volume appears to be a much more in-depth treatment of the issue but still requires the reader to suspend a lot of disbelief. Only for the truly broadminded.-- Michael Rogers, ``Library Journal''Booknews
Results of the First International Conference on Hemochromatosis, held by the New York Academy of Sciences on Apr. 1987, in New York, NY. No subject index. Acidic paper. Distinguished critic Spilka (English and comparative literature, Brown U.) comes squarely up against the entrenched mystique surrounding the hard drinker and bullfighter and creator of characters steeled by their own code. Stressing Hemingway's lifelong dependence on and secret identification with women, he shatters the myths of male bonding and of heroic lives of himself promoted. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)Novel
"After this ground-breaking book, Hemingway criticism must consider the full range of sexual, and gender, allegiances in the author’s life and work. It is rare that any single study has such an impact.”—NovelStudies in the Novel
"A remarkable study of American social and family culture. . . . This book will undoubtedly open additional avenues of exploration for scholars who are interested in why Hemingway wrote as he did."—Studies in the NovelAmerican Literature
"Spilka's account. . .is crucial to an even-handed apprehension, and an even-handed appreciation, of its elusive subject."—American LiteratureModern Language Review
"A fascinating study, deeply researched, provocatively argued, and impelled by an ardent desire to revoke the Hemingway of popular mythology.”—Modern Language ReviewBook Details
Published
April 1, 1995
Publisher
Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, c1990.
Pages
383
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9780803292352