WHO/WHAT WAS THE “LOST GENERATION”?
Art collector, writer, host,
friend to artistic ex-Patriots.
Common themes:
searching for
purpose in
life/humanity,
writing about
wartime
experiences, living
in post-war Paris,
lavishness/excess of
the Jazz Age,
disillusionment in
both short stories
and novels including
iconic American
narratives.
Name:
Date:
Lit Discussions

Complete your rdg before circulating to share & take notes on 4 authors. Summarize the essence of each individual.
F. Scott Fitzgerald: dropped out of Princeton to join war effort (although not being sent abroad remained one of his
regrets), lived in Paris and New York, known for turbulent marriage to Zelda, died at 44 from alcohol related illness,
majority of work was centered around the “Jazz Age” of Roaring 20s, most famous for The Great Gatsby (several
modern adaptations), and was good friends with Hemingway, who also struggled with alcoholism.
Quotes: “That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that
you're not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.” “Show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy.” “The
loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is
stare blankly.” (The Great Gatsby) “Here's to alcohol, the rose colored glasses of life.” (The Beautiful & the Damned)
“One writes of scars healed, a loose parallel to the pathology of the skin, but there is no such thing in the life of an
individual. There are open wounds, shrunk sometimes to the size of a pin-prick but wounds still. The marks of
suffering are comparable to the loss of a finger, or of the sight of an eye. We may not miss them, either, for one
minute in a year, but if we should there is nothing to be done about it.” (Tender is the Night)
From “This Side of Paradise,” his 1920 debut novel about Armory, a WWI-era youth…
 They spent two evenings getting an exact definition. “THE SLICKER” Clever sense of social values. Dresses well.
Pretends that dress is superficial — but knows that it isn’t. Goes into such activities as he can shine in. Gets to college
and is, in a worldly way, successful. Hair slicked. “THE BIG MAN” Inclined to stupidity and unconscious of social
values. Thinks dress is superficial, and is inclined to be careless about it. Goes out for everything from a sense of
duty. Gets to college and has a problematical future. Feels lost without his circle, and always says that school days
were happiest, after all. Goes back to school and makes speeches about what St. Regis’s boys are doing. Hair not
slicked. Amory had decided definitely on Princeton, even though he would be the only boy entering that year from
St. Regis’. Yale had a romance and glamour from the tales of Minneapolis, and St. Regis’ men who had been “tapped
for Skull and Bones,” but Princeton drew him most, with its atmosphere of bright colors and its alluring reputation
as the pleasantest country club in America. Dwarfed by the menacing college exams, Amory’s school days drifted
into the past. Years afterward, when he went back to St. Regis’, he seemed to have forgotten the successes of sixthform year, and to be able to picture himself only as the unadjustable boy who had hurried down corridors, jeered at
by his rabid contemporaries mad with common sense.
Name:
Date:
Lit Discussions

Complete your rdg before circulating to share & take notes on 4 authors. Summarize the essence of each individual.
Ernest Hemingway: volunteered as an ambulance driver in WWI, known for short stories and novels with clear,
straightforward prose and deeper meanings, wrote about experiences at war, what it meant to be a man, and the
fleetingness of life. Spent time in Paris as ex-pat with other artistic greats & inspired by matadors of Spain. Committed suicide at age 61. Was also big game hunter, fisherman and failed spy for Cuba. Nobel Prize winner 1954.
Quotes: “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life
it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” “I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and
sacrifice and the expression in vain ... I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and
the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago…Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage or hallow were
obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments
and the dates.” (A Farewell to Arms) “Don't you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you're not taking
advantage of it? Do you realize you've lived nearly half the time you have to live already?” (The Sun Also Rises)
From “A Farewell to Arms,” his 1929 novel from the perspective of a WWI lieutenant…
 That night at the hotel, in our room with the long empty hall outside and our shoes outside the door, a thick
carpet on the floor of the room, outside the windows the rain falling and in the room light and pleasant and cheerful,
then the light out and it exciting with smooth sheets and the bed comfortable, feeling that we had come home,
feeling no longer alone, waking in the night to find the other one there, and not gone away; all other things were
unreal. We slept when we were tired and if we woke the other one woke so no one was not alone. Often a man
wishes to be alone and a girl wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous of that in each other,
but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. It has
only happened to me like that once. I have been alone while I Was with many girls and that is the way you can be
most lonely. But we were never lonely and never afraid when we were together. I know that the night is not the
same as the day: that all things are different, that the things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they
do not then exist, and the night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started. But with
Catherine there was almost no difference in the night except that it was an even better time. If people bring so much
courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one
and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and
the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there
will be no special hurry.
Name:
Date:
Lit Discussions

Complete your rdg before circulating to share & take notes on 4 authors. Summarize the essence of each individual.
Sinclair Lewis: born in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, Lewis was a lonely, awkward boy who liked to read. After high
school Lewis left Minnesota to study at Yale University in Connecticut, interrupting his education in 1907 to work
briefly at a New Jersey socialist colony set up by the writer Upton Sinclair. In 1920 Lewis achieved instant
worldwide recognition with the publication of Main Street, the story of a gifted young girl married to a dull,
considerably older village doctor who tries to bring culture and imagination to empty, small-town life. Next Lewis
focused on the American businessman in Babbitt (1922), perhaps his major work. Lewis purposely wrote in a
fantastic style, ignoring formal plot development or structure. The creation of George F. Babbitt, an intellectually
empty, immature man of weak morals who nevertheless remains a lovable comic figure, is Lewis's greatest
accomplishment. Lewis's next popular novel, Arrowsmith (1925), portrayed a young doctor's battle to maintain his
dignity in a petty, dishonest world. Despite its often simplistic look at science as a means of saving one's soul,
Arrowsmith was offered the Pulitzer Prize. Lewis, however, immediately refused the honor because the terms of the
award required that it be given not for a work of value, but for a work that presents "the wholesome atmosphere of
American Life." In 1930 Sinclair Lewis became the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, but this
honor brought him little personal happiness. Lewis spent his last years traveling throughout Europe, unable to find
publishers for his work and aware that his impact on American literature was far less than his early admirers had
led him to believe. It Can’t Happen Here (1936) is the only one of his later novels to match the power of his earlier
work. A cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy, it is an alarming, eerily timeless look at how fascism could
take hold in America. Written during the Great Depression, when the country was largely oblivious to Hitler’s
aggression, it juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a president who becomes a dictator
to save the nation from welfare cheats, sex, crime, and a liberal press.
 “Babbitt” excerpt: It was the best of nationally advertised and quantitatively produced alarm-clocks, with all
modern attachments, including cathedral chime, intermittent alarm, & a phosphorescent dial. Babbitt was proud of
being awakened by such a rich device. Socially it was almost as creditable as buying expensive cord tires. He sulkily
admitted now that there was no more escape, but he lay and detested the grind of the real-estate business, and
disliked his family, and disliked himself for disliking them. The evening before, he had played poker at Vergil Gunch’s
till midnight, and after such holidays he was irritable before breakfast. It may have been the tremendous homebrewed beer of the prohibition-era and the cigars to which that beer enticed him; it may have been resentment of
return from this fine, bold man-world to a restricted region of wives and stenographers, and of suggestions not to
smoke so much. From the bedroom beside the sleeping-porch, his wife’s detestably cheerful “Time to get up,
Georgie boy,” and the itchy sound, the brisk and scratchy sound, of combing hairs out of a stiff brush.
Name:
Date:
Lit Discussions

Complete your rdg before circulating to share & take notes on 4 authors. Summarize the essence of each individual.
Dorothy Parker: In 1914, Dorothy sold her first poem to Vanity Fair. At age 22, she took an editorial job at Vogue.
She continued to write poems for newspapers and magazines, and in 1917 she joined Vanity Fair, taking over for
P.G. Wodehouse as drama critic. In 1919, Parker became a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, an
informal gathering of writers who lunched at the Algonquin Hotel. The “Vicious Circle” included Robert Benchley,
Harpo Marx, George S Kaufman, and Edna Ferber, and was known for its scathing wit and intellectual commentary.
In 1922, Parker published her first short story, “Such a Pretty Little Picture," for Smart Set. When the New Yorker
debuted in 1925, Parker was listed on the editorial board. Over the years, she contributed poetry, fiction and book
reviews as the “Constant Reader.” Parker’s first collection of poetry, Enough Rope, was published in 1926, and was a
bestseller. Her collected fiction came out in 1930 as Laments for the Living.
During the 1920s, Parker traveled to Europe several times. She befriended Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald,
and contributed articles to the New Yorker and Life. While her work was successful & she was well-regarded for her
wit and conversational abilities, she suffered from depression and alcoholism and attempted suicide. In 1929, she
won the O. Henry Award for her autobiographical short story “Big Blonde.” Parker, who became a socialist in 1927
when she became involved in the Sacco and Vanzetti trial, was called before the House on Un-American Activities in
1955. She pleaded the Fifth Amendment. Parker was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in
1959. On June 6, 1967, Parker was found dead of a heart attack in a New York City hotel at age 73. A firm believer in
civil rights, she bequeathed her literary estate to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Quotes: “I'd like to have money. And I'd like to be a good writer. These 2 can come together & I hope they will, but if
that's too adorable, I'd rather have money.” “Don't look at me in that tone of voice.” “Heterosexuality is not normal,
it's just common.” “Now I know the things I know, and I do the things I do; and if you do not like me so, to heck, my
love, with you!” “I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true.” “Be you wise and never sad, You will
get your lovely lad. Never serious be, nor true & your wish will come to you. And if that makes you happy, kid, You'll
be the first it ever did.” “Of course I talk to myself. I like a good speaker, & I appreciate an intelligent audience.”
“If I didn't care for fun and such,
I'd probably amount to much.
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.”
“I'm of the glamorous ladies
At whose beckoning history shook.
But you are a man, and see only my pan,
So I stay at home with a book.
Name:
Date:
Lit Discussions

Complete your rdg before circulating to share & take notes on 4 authors. Summarize the essence of each individual.
Stefan Zweig: Stefan Zweig was one of the most popular and widely translated writers of the early twentieth
century. Born into an Austrian-Jewish family in 1881, he became a leading figure in Vienna's cosmopolitan cultural
world and was famed for his gripping novellas and vivid psychological biographies. In 1934, following the Nazis'
rise to power, Zweig fled Austria, first for England, where he wrote his famous novel Beware of Pity, then the U.S. and
finally Brazil. It was here that he completed his acclaimed autobiography The World of Yesterday, a lament for the
golden age of a Europe destroyed by two world wars. The articles and speeches in Messages from a Lost World were
written as Zweig, a pacifist and internationalist, witnessed this destruction and warned of the threat to his beloved
Europe. In February of 1942, Zweig & his second wife Lotte were found dead, following an apparent double suicide.
Zweig's memoir, was completed shortly before his death. It charts the history of Europe from nineteenth-century
splendor, decadence and complacency, through the devastation of the First World War, to the resultant brutality and
depravity of the Nazi regime. The World of Yesterday (1942) is a heartfelt tribute to an age of humanity & enlightenment that Zweig feared was lost forever. *[Zweig does not quite fit the “Lost Generation” definition as he wasn’t
American, but his writings reflect common themes & shape a more complex understanding of the interwar years.]
Quotes from The World of Yesterday: “Only the person who has experienced light and darkness, war and peace, rise
and fall, only that person has truly experienced life.” “Every hour of our years was linked to the fate of the world. In
sorrow and in joy we have lived through time and history far beyond our own small lives, while they knew nothing
beyond themselves. Every one of us, therefore, even the least of the human race, knows a thousand times more
about reality today than the wisest of our forebears. But nothing was given to us freely; we paid the price in full.”
“Art can bring us consolation as individuals, but it is powerless against reality.” “Nationalism emerged to agitate the
world only after the war, and the first visible phenomenon which this intellectual epidemic of our century brought
about was xenophobia; morbid dislike of the foreigner, or at least fear of the foreigner. The world was on the
defensive against strangers, everywhere they got short shrift. The humiliations which once had been devised with
criminals alone in mind now were imposed upon the traveler, before and during every journey.” “The herd instinct
of the mob was not yet as offensively powerful in public life as it is today; freedom in what you did or did not do in
private life was taken for granted - which is hardly imaginable now - and toleration was not, as it is today, deplored
as a weakness and debility, but was praised as an ethical force.”