American Literature / Unit 15 AML 1412 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Ernest Hemingway and the Iceberg
Captions available
The idea
Hemingway drove an ambulance in Italy, was wounded, reported from Europe, and built a prose of short declarative sentences and concrete nouns. His principle was that a writer may omit what he knows, and the omitted part strengthens the story, like the seven-eighths of an iceberg under water.
In practice
Omit what you know; it still shows.
Where people slip
The theory explains the surface's flatness.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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