Week 4 Post

 

 

(A Winter's Promise wasn't part of the project, but I do highly recommend)    

    Self-Reflection: 

    My initial goals for this project were threefold. First, to read as much Stein and Hemingway material as possible; second, to understand how the authors' environments influenced their work; and third, to understand how the authors influenced one another. These goals stayed pretty constant over the course of my project and, in a final analysis, I think I made progress on each front. For the first goal, I certainly succeeded in reading a large quantity of Stein's and Hemingway's work. In the end, I read eight books, five by Hemingway, two by Stein, and one book about Stein and her partner, Alice B. Toklas. As to the second goal, I think I researched both authors' lives enough to begin to place them within their historical epoch. In particular, I found it helpful, whenever Stein or Hemingway mentioned a contemporary (which happens a lot), to research that person. Among others, I learned about artists such as Ezra Pound, Salvador Dali, James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and political figures, including Bernard Fay, Marshall Ney, and Francisco Franco. Finally, I think I made the most progress of all on my last goal, which was to understand the relationship between my two authors. I was most helped in this regard by three books, Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, Stein's Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, and the biography/work of literary criticism Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice. Through these works, I came to understand that while Stein certainly exerted a lot of influence on the young Hemingway, the two authors parted ways pretty early in Hemingway's career. Overall, I accomplished, broadly speaking, what I set out to do and had a great time while doing so. 

    Recommendation: 

    First, I think Catlin should certainly try to incorporate more "passion projects" into more typical (job/internship) Senior Projects. I feel that a student who is deeply invested in a certain passion project will have as meaningful, or even more meaningful, an experience as a student participating in a typical Senior Project. With passion projects, because they are self-motivated, there is, of course, the potential for the student to become distracted and to lose interest, but with an involved advisor, I feel this can be avoided. 

    Second, I would wholeheartedly recommend this project to any student even a little interested in literature and history. Diving into a particular author's (or authors') work, totally immersing oneself in their world, is an experience I think everyone should have at least once in their lifetime.