Romanticism was a movement in the arts and literature which originated in the late 18th century, emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity and the primacy of the individual. It was a reaction against the order and restraint of classicism and neoclassicism and a rejection of the rationalism which characterised the enlightenment. The British writers who exemplified the movement include William Wordsworth, Coleridge, P.B. Shelley and John Keats. In American literature, F. Scott Fitzgerald was the leading light of romanticism.
Fitzgerald is regarded as the literary spokesman for the ‘Lost Generation’ of the 1920s in America. He was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. Although his family had a social standing, they were not rich people. He attended a preparatory school with the help of his aunt. Later, he gained admission to Princeton University, but left it before graduating to accept a commission as a second lieutenant in the Army during World War I. When he wrote his first noel ‘This side of paradise’, it became a best seller. Soon the magazines were eager to publish his stories. His second book ‘Tales of the Jazz Age’ brought him money and fame. He simply wanted to tell readers how he felt with all the nervous energy stored up and unexpended in the war.
At the tender age of 12, Fitzgerald wrote a detective story, organised plays with his friends. At Princeton University, he was a popular figure. Although he had good looks and intelligence, he had no money to enjoy life. When he contracted malaria, he left the university. After recovery, he did not want to go back to the university and decided to join the Army as a second lieutenant. When he was sent to Camp Sheridan, he met Zelda, a golden-haired beauty. He loved her immensely and called her “The most beautiful girl in Alabama and Georgia.”
End of war
His love affair with Zelda was briefly interrupted when he was sent overseas. Luckily for him, the war ended and he returned to New York where he earned enough money to marry Zelda. He took to advertising and continued to write short stories. However, most of his short stories bounced back with rejection slips.
Meanwhile, he did not forget to send feverish love letters to Zelda. Then he quit his job and returned home to finish his novel ‘This side of paradise.’ When it was published in 1920, it became a best seller. At the age of 23, he was hailed as the ‘Voice of the Jazz Age’ by literary critics. Fitzgerald and Zelda were married in New York. While they were on their honeymoon, the whole country was jubilant over the end of World War I. Fitzgerald wrote, “America was going on the greatest, gaudiest spree in history.” He also recorded his feelings in a verse:
There was an orchestra – Bingo!
Bingo!
Playing for us to dance the tango
And the people all clapped as we arose
For her sweet face and my new clothes
After the marriage, they were on cloud nine. They drank champagne, rode on the top of taxis and plunged into the fountain in front of Plaza Hotel. One day, they attended a party in nightgown and pajamas. After some time, they went to Europe and travelled like gypsies.
While he kept on writing, Zelda learnt ballet and painting. After returning to St. Paul, Zelda gave birth to her daughter Frances fondly called ‘Scottie.’ After publishing his second novel ‘The beautiful and the damned’, the couple moved back to New York. They settled down on Long Island and started giving lavish parties to their friends.
Ambition
Fitzgerald always wanted to be a great author. He realised his ambition when he published ‘The Great Gatsby’ in 1925. The novel became an immediate success and newspapers and magazines published rave reviews. Letters praising him started to pour in. The eminent writer T.S. Eliot hailed the novel as the first step forward in American fiction. He wrote: “Fitzgerald draws the finest and purest tone from the English language of any writer now alive.”
While basking in his fame as a great writer, Fitzgerald also had an eye for talented writers. After meeting Ernest Hemingway, he wrote to his editor recommending him as a budding writer.
Good fortune does not last forever. When the stock market crashed, the United States faced a bleak future. When Zelda had a sudden mental breakdown, Fitzgerald was devastated. She spent some time in mental institutes and passed away. At the time, Scottie was studying in fashionable schools in the United States. Fitzgerald fell deeper in debt. His only advice to his daughter was “Don’t worry about the past or the future.”
Depression, alcoholism and insomnia were causing immense trouble to Fitzgerald. When he realised that his fourth novel ‘Tender is the night’ was not selling, he did not know how to pay his debtors. He moved into a cheap hotel and tried to recover from his depression. When he tried his hand at script writing for Hollywood, he was hired and fired for drinking. He sent the first chapter of a novel to a magazine, but it was rejected. Then he suffered a heart attack and died at the age of 44.
Reputation, not a legend
Although he died young, Fitzgerald is regarded as one of America’s greatest authors. He has enriched American literature with 160 short stories and four novels. When ‘The last tycoon’ was posthumously published, poet Stephen Vincent Benet wrote: “You can take off your hats now gentlemen, and I think perhaps you had better. This is not a legend, this is a reputation, and it may well be one of the most secure reputations of our time.”
Future generations will remember Fitzgerald as a pursuer of illusive dreams. His luminous prose and the haunting quality of his life still exert a powerful hold on our imagination.
Surprisingly, when he died in 1940, the news of his death came as a surprise to many people because they had thought that he had been dead for years. The reason was that he had fallen into obscurity and his novels had been forgotten by the public. Today, however, there is a revived interest in Fitzgerald.
