Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Hemingway, Ernest (Vol. 19) - Seymour Krim

1. Printable Version
2. Download PDF
3. Cite this Page
4. Tweet This

SEYMOUR KRIM

[Hemingway's collected poems, 88 Poems,] show the thin, hard stream of his contempt even more clearly than his prose. Among the people and things that he subjected to his nostrilwincing amonia were blank verse, "clean" sports, Martel cognac, highbrows, gabby Jews, clergymen, wedding gifts, gung-ho soldiers, Teddy Roosevelt, Democracy, expatriates, liberals….

And yet—it sounds unbelievable after this catalogue of peeve—Hemingway was an endearing writer as well as a courageous one. The strange word "endearing" comes to mind because he was so wholehearted in his motives: when he hated he hated, when he had contempt it was not disguised. Even though Hemingway was a dirty fighter with words, and probably in a brawl as well, there is never any doubt that they were wrenched out of him; in fact, you can say that the dirty fighting was symbolic of the lengths he would go to to avenge his obsessions. It gives us pause.

When a writer is...

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass

1. Introduction
2. Paul Rosenfeld
3. Virginia Woolf
4. Malcolm Cowley
5. Robert W. Stallman
6. Robert P. Weeks
7. Linda Welshimer Wagner
8. NICHOLAS JOOST and ALAN BROWN
9. Seymour Krim
10. Carole Moses
11. Kathleen L. Nichols
12. David M. Wyatt
13. Copyright