Hemingway's Quarrel with Androgyny

Abstract

'After this ground-breaking book, Hemingway criticism must consider the full range of sexual, and gender, allegiances in the author's life and work. It is rare that any single study has such an impact' - 'A remarkable study of social and family culture...This book will undoubtedly open additional avenues of exploration for scholars who are interested in why Hemingway wrote as he did' - Studies in the Novel. 'Spilka's account...is crucial to an even-handed apprehension, and an even-handed appreciation, of its elusive subject' - American Literature.'A fascinating study, deeply researched, provocatively argued, and impelled by an ardent desire to revoke the Hemingway of popular mythology' - Modern Language Review. Quarrel with Androgyny confronts the entrenched mystique surrounding the hard drinker, bullfighter, and creator of characters steeled by their own code. Spilka stresses Hemingway's lifelong dependence on and secret identification with women, and in doing so shatters the myths of male bonding and heroic lives of 'men without women'. He develops the biographical, literary, and cultural implications of Hemingway's lifelong quarrel with androgyny to reveal a more psychologically complex man and writer than the mystique has allowed. Mark Spilka, a professor of English and comparative literature at Brown University, is the author of Dickens and Kafka: A Mutual Interpretation.