Böcker av Michael Grawe

Inhaltsangabe:Abstract: Paris has traditionally called to the American heart, beginning with the arrival of Benjamin Franklin in 1776 in an effort to win the support of France for the colonies? War of Independence. Franklin would remain in Paris for nine years, returning to Philadelphia in 1785. Then, in the first great period of American literature before 1860, literary pioneers such as Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Nathaniel Hawthorne were all to spend time in the French capital. Henry James, toward the close of the nineteenth century, was the first to create the image of a talented literary artist who was ready to foreswear his citizenship. From his adopted home in England he traveled widely through Italy and France, living in Paris for two years. There he became close friends with another literary expatriate, Edith Wharton, who made Paris her permanent home. Between them they gave the term ?expatriate? a high literary polish at the turn of the century, and their prestige was undeniable. They were the ?in? cosmopolitans, sought out by traveling Americans, commented on in the press, the favored guests of scholars, as well as men and women of affairs. This thesis investigates the mass expatriation of Americans to Paris during the 1920s, and then focuses on selected works by two of the expatriates: Ernest Hemingway?s The Sun Also Rises (1926) and F. Scott Fitzgerald?s The Great Gatsby (1925). The specific emphasis is on disillusionment with the American lifestyle as reflected in these novels. The two books have been chosen because both are prominent examples of the literary criticism that Americans were directing at their homeland from abroad throughout the twenties. In a first step, necessary historical background regarding the nature of the American lifestyle is provided in chapter two. This information is included in order to facilitate a better understanding of what Hemingway and Fitzgerald were actually disillusioned with. Furthermore, that lifestyle was a primary motivating factor behind the expatriation of many United States citizens. Attention is given to the extraordinary nature of the American migration to Paris in the twenties, as the sheer volume of exiles set it apart from any expatriation movement ? before or since ? in American history. Moreover, a vast majority of the participants were writers, artists, or intellectuals, a fact which suggests the United States during [¿]

Inhaltsangabe:Abstract: This paper will compare and contrast the written form of Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire with the 1951 movie version. It will explain and discuss the major differences between the two, focusing on the issue of censorship as it was an important factor in the development of the play from its Broadway form into a film. As this paper will show this was due to the fact that during the 1940s and 50s the world of theater in America was much more permissive than that of film. This paper will also examine Williams' concept of a 'plastic theater', an innovative approach by him which utilized music, sound effects, movement and lighting to express abstract themes. His idea of a 'plastic theater', was closer to the world of film than to the traditional form of the stage and is evident in A Streetcar Named Desire. It influenced the adaptation of the play to the big screen. The play A Streetcar Named Desire opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, New York City, on December 3, 1947. Following The Glass Menagerie it was only the second of Williams' plays to be performed on Broadway. Despite his relatively short history on the New York stage Streetcar was a great success, running for 855 performances. It also became the first play to win all three major awards: the Pulitzer Prize, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award, and the Donaldson Award. Film makers were for two years uninterested in turning the play into a motion picture despite its overwhelming popularity. This was because A Streetcar Named Desire did not fit the standard Hollywood model for movies in the 1940s which was one of clean, wholesome family entertainment. Only William Wyler, one of Hollywood's most commercially successful directors at that time, was interested. He thought that it had the potential for box-office success, given both its popularity and its critical recognition. However, later he abandoned the project because of the censorship requirements. In 1951, the film A Streetcar Named Desire was released, directed by Elia Kazan. It had grown directly out of the New York stage production, which he had also directed. Tennessee Williams wrote the screenplay for the film together with Kazan, remaining close to the original text. Virtually the entire cast was retained for the movie, including leads Marlon Brando (as Stanley Kowalski), Kim Hunter (Stella Kowalski), and Karl Malden (Harold Mitchell or Mitch). However, as Blanche DuBois, Jessica Tandy [¿]