
Title
Ernest Hemingway: Knighthood In Our Time
Document Type
Essay
Annotation
On the influence of the medieval tradition, particularly chivalry and courtly love, in The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Across the River and into the Trees, and The Old Man and the Sea. Argues that in their attempt to adapt knightly codes to the modern world, Hemingway’s male protagonists fail miserably, sinking into self-pity and cynicism. Reads Hemingway’s reactions against the horrors of modern warfare, fascination with the ritualized bullring, and depiction of idealized female characters because of his romanticized nostalgia for the Middle Ages.
Published in
The Medievalist Impulse in American Literature: Twain, Adams, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway
Date
1996
Pages
161-200
Citation
Moreland, Kim. “Ernest Hemingway: Knighthood In Our Time.” In The Medievalist Impulse in American Literature: Twain, Adams, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway, 161-200. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1996.