Ernest Hemingway
American · 20th century
American novelist and journalist, one of the foremost authors of the Lost Generation, known for his economical prose style.
Connection to Taylor Swift
His novel The Sun Also Rises contains the famous last line 'Isn't it pretty to think so?' which Angela & Uncle Jerry connect to a Taylor Swift lyric on folklore.
Notable Works
- The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea, For Whom the Bell Tolls
Appears in the Archive
Context within the Archive
The Sun Also Rises
Angela & Uncle Jerry discuss great last lines in the context of 'Don't read the last page.' Uncle Jerry quotes the famous last line of The Sun Also Rises, 'Isn't it pretty to think so?', and Angela immediately connects it to Taylor's line on folklore: 'isn't it just so pretty to think?' suggesting Taylor may have read Hemingway.
A Farewell to Arms
Uncle Jerry discusses the Dear John letter tradition and identifies Agnes von Kurowsky as the real person behind Catherine Barclay in Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. The novel draws on Hemingway's own experience of receiving a Dear John letter from Kurowsky after falling in love with her while convalescing from a war wound. The connection to Dear John is through the Dear John letter tradition itself: Taylor's song uses the epistolary frame that the novel fictionalises from Hemingway's biography. The song does not quote or directly allude to the novel, but both works share the same cultural tradition of the letter that ends a relationship.