Redefining American Literature

 brief sentences  not much description  “tell, don’t describe”  lean, athletic prose  lots of dialogue ◦ lack of “speaker tags”

 “I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it under water for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn’t show.” (1958)

 things the reader needs to figure out  things left unsaid  reading between the lines  symbols

 Death and War  Masculine love  Living by “codes”  Cruelty of life  “The Lost Generation”  Loss of hope  No future or meaning to life ◦ existentialism

 “…All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that you knew or had seen or had heard someone say. If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written.”

 Self-discipline—includes self-sacrifice  Skillful—good at something above and beyond other men (fishing, fighting, bull-fighting, wooing of women)  Living by a code—loyalty and devotion to duty

 Gratification of sensual pleasures— food, drink, music, wooing of women  Stoicism—reason controls emotion  Grace under pressure—facing life, and especially death, with courage, honor, and dignity