The Far Side of Paradise: A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Piper, Henry Dan; Mizener, Arthur

doi:10.2307/2921469

Cited by 25 publications

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“…According to these critics, the fact that Fitzgerald was the main character in all of his novels makes them rather uninteresting and incapable of being real critical successes, since the material is merely biographical and limited; in a way, he only wrote 14 glorified autobiographies. His sometime friend Hemingway, his biographers Mizener (1949) and Gallo (1978), and his critic Edwin Fussel (1952) all make a version of this argument, claiming that Fitzgerald's main characters are, most of of his best material out of short stories to put into his novels. For a precise account of exactly how he did this for Tender is the Night see Anderson (1996, Appendix D).…”

Section: Fitzgerald Scholarshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Politics of F. Scott Fizgerald

Shiveley

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F. Scott Fitzgerald is valued for his contribution to literary arts, culture and his discussion of the American Dream. I argue that his discussion of the American Dream was a lens through which he gave readers access to political insights and an education about political philosophy, American politics, virtue, and reasoning. The American Dream, at its greatest, for Fitzgerald is a nation building myth but at its lowest is a dull materialistic construct. Throughout his works Fitzgerald connects philosophic ideas to the American Dream in attempts to educate and ennoble his readers. The ability to judge well is a critical piece of self-government that was a focus of Fitzgerald's throughout his body of work. In The Beautiful and Damned, by giving weight to Platonic ideals of beauty and goodness, and Platonic heuristics like the allegory of the cave he attempted to negate the detrimental effects of nihilism in America at his time and after. In The Great Gatsby, by presenting virtue of the contemplative life that could be cultivated by his readers, in his time, and including esoteric teachings on those virtues and values he attempted to negate the detrimental effects of materialism on the American dream. Finally, in The Last Tycoon, by articulating an American alternative to the philosopher-king he put forward a vision of statesmanship that could mitigate the effects of materialism and keep the American Dream alive against a socialist attack.

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Section: Fitzgerald Scholarshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Politics of F. Scott Fizgerald

Shiveley

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Fitzgerald’s nonfiction

Donaldson¹

The Cambridge Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald

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The Last Tycoon and Max Eastman: Fitzgerald's Complete Political Primer

Joy¹

1987

Prosp.

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Unfortunately for American letters, when F. Scott Fitzgerald died he left behind a brilliant and extensive but critically problematical set of fragments of a Hollywood novel, tentatively entitled Stahr a Romance or The Love of the Last Tycoon A Western, but published as The Last Tycoon. Although the published edition has been available for fortyodd years, the need to decipher its unfinished design persists. The plot is cut off; the disorderly notes provide contradictions and minimal help in interpretation; the extant texts exist in a number of states, none final; and Edmund Wilson's edition raises grave doubts. Nevertheless, Tycoon is a most ambitiously planned novel, conceived in the moral and metaphorical amplitude of Fitzgerald's full artistic maturity, assimilating at least as absolutely as elsewhere in the canon his cultural perceptions and ambiguities regarding the quality of American civilization.

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The Far Side of Paradise: A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Cited by 25 publications

References 0 publications

The Politics of F. Scott Fizgerald

The Politics of F. Scott Fizgerald

Fitzgerald’s nonfiction

The Last Tycoon and Max Eastman: Fitzgerald's Complete Political Primer

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