F. Scott Fitzgerald and Romantic Destiny
1980; Duke University Press; Volume: 26; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/441371
ISSN2325-8101
Autores Tópico(s)Poetry Analysis and Criticism
ResumoIn a letter to Maxwell Perkins, F. Scott Fitzgerald tells us of his interest in Oswald Spengler. read [Spengler] the summer I was writing Great Gatsby, and I don't think I ever quite recovered from him.' This passage has created some confusion, because Spengler's Decline of the West, originally published in 1918 (Volume I) and 1922 (Volume II), was not translated into English until 1926, and Fitzgerald was unable to read German. As a result, some critics have maintained that Fitzgerald could not have benefited from Spengler's ideas when he was writing Gatsby.2 I find this notion disconcerting, because it brings a literal-mindedness to literary and intellectual matters that distorts the way ideas unfold. When Spengler's ideas appeared in Germany, they created a sensation, and his general theory of the West was debated in intellectual circles in both America and Europe. Spengler's books were reviewed widely with long summary statements, and he was very much in the air, especially in Europe, that summer of 1924 when Fitzgerald, living in France, maintains that he read Spengler while working on Great Gatsby. For example, I have located nine articles or review-essays in English on Spengler and Decline of the West, published between 1922 and the summer of 1924. One of the most detailed is an 8,000 word essay by W. K. Stewart, entitled The Decline of Western Culture: Oswald Spengler's 'Downfall of Western Civilization' Explained. This article appeared in the Century magazine in the summer of 1924, exactly the time that Fitzgerald tells Perkins he was reading Spengler. Century was a magazine that Fitzgerald often read (in Tender Is the Night, Dick Diver even buys it at a station quay, among other reading material, when he leaves for a trip). That this and
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