Hemingway’s Writing Style Essay

From almost the beginning of his writing career, Hemingways classifiable style occasioned a great deal of comment and controversy. Basically, his style is simple, direct, and unadorned, probably as a result of his early newspaper training. He avoids the adjective whenever possible, but beca use he is a master at transmitting feeling without the flowery prose of his Victorian novelist predecessors, the effect is far more telling. In Observations on the Style of Ernest Hemingway, from Contexts of Criticism by Harry Levin (Harvard University Press, 1957), the critic says Hemingway puts his emphasis on nouns because, among other parts of speech, they come deathst to things. Stringing them along by government agency of conjunctions, he approximates the actual flow of experience.Hemingway has often been described as a master of dialog, and most readers agree, upon being first introduced to his writing, that this is the way these characters would really talk. It is evoke to note, howe ver, that Hemingways one attempt at playwriting was a failure. Actually, a close examination of his dialog will reveal that this is rarely the way people really speak. The effect is accomplished, rather, by the calculated emphasis and repetition which makes us remember what has been said.Since the critics cannot entirely agree on Hemingways style, perhaps the surpass way is to put it into the authors own lecture. Shortly out front his tragic death, Hemingway gave to the Wisdom Foundation in California a appealingness of his observations on life and art, love and death. They were published in the January 1963, issue of playboy magazine, and in them Hemingway said of his writingI do most of my lop in my head. I never begin to write until my ideas are in order. Frequently I recite passages of dialogue as it is being written the ear is a good censor. I never set pile a sentence on paper until I have it so expressed that it will be clear to anyone.Yet, I sometimes recollect tha t my style is suggestive rather than direct. The reader must often use his imagination or lose the most subtle part of my thoughts.I take great pains with my work, pruning and revising with a industrious hand. I have the welfare of my creations very much at heart. I cut them with infinite care, and burnish them until they become brilliants. What many another source would be content to leave in massive proportions, I goal into a tiny gem.Hemingway goes on at some length, but the marrow squash of what he says may be in this paragraphA sources style should be direct and personal, his imagery rich and earthy, and his words simple and vigorous. The greatest writers have the gift of brilliant brevity, are intemperate workers, diligent scholars and competent stylists.To explain Hemingways style adequately in a few paragraphs is impossible. Scores of articles, and even some books, have been written on the subject, and it is to these that the serious student should go for additional, mo re detailed information.