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Murad American Images of Spain.6.pdf (1.28 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

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American Images of Spain, 1905-1936: Stein, Dos Passos, Hemingway

Murad, David
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1368551237

Abstract Details

2013, PHD, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of English.
During significant periods of their lives, Gertrude Stein, John Dos Passos, and Ernest Hemingway were invested emotionally and creatively in Spain. In numerous letters, stories, and essays, each writer treated Spain as a creative point of departure, and Spain—or the image of Spain—essentially emerged as a physical as well as symbolic space of discovery, rediscovery, and regeneration. Ultimately, their writing not only speaks to the cross-current of American-Spanish relations over the past several centuries but literally becomes embedded in a larger, more extensive twentieth-century transnational narrative. Stein’s admiration of and friendship with Pablo Picasso, which began in 1905, transformed her writing. Through Picasso, Stein theorized a special understanding or “likeness” between Americans and Spaniards, which, when fully pronounced by the 1930s, explained how the two distinct countries were mutually, even exclusively, responsible for the “twentieth century” and “modern” art. As one of the era’s most visible transnationalists, Dos Passos discovered in Spain almost a second home—a productive space and spark for his professional endeavors and a pleasant retreat from the commercialization and industrialization of post-War Europe and America. Although his life’s work dealt with many of the places he had known and traveled, Spain was an early inspiration and source for material. Hemingway’s approach to Spain was fundamentally as a student, even if his public stature, then and since, appears to show a mastery of Spanish language and culture. Like Dos Passos and Stein, Hemingway used Spain as both a sounding board for his own imaginative work and as an instructive example for an American or Western audience who were curious to discover what made Spain so unique or “different.” While such diverse authors professed privileged, insider access along the way, their widely read “images of Spain” publicized and endorsed the value of Spanish culture, which greatly influenced the sympathy and interest of future generations. Thus, a twentieth-century American fascination with Spain is attributable to both the life these writers lived as well as the art they created.
Robert Trogdon (Committee Chair)
Kevin Floyd (Committee Member)
Babacar M'Baye (Committee Member)
Ann Heiss (Committee Member)
362 p.
American Literature; American Studies
Gertrude Stein; John Dos Passos; Ernest Hemingway; America; Spain; transnationalism; cosmopolitanism; modernism; literature

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Murad, D. (2013). American Images of Spain, 1905-1936: Stein, Dos Passos, Hemingway [Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1368551237

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Murad, David. American Images of Spain, 1905-1936: Stein, Dos Passos, Hemingway. 2013. Kent State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1368551237.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Murad, David. "American Images of Spain, 1905-1936: Stein, Dos Passos, Hemingway." Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1368551237

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.