الموضوع
:
سر الفوز بجائزة نوبل في الادب على مدى التاريخ؟ دراسة
عرض مشاركة واحدة
10-18-2012, 04:10 PM
المشاركة
34
ايوب صابر
مراقب عام سابقا
اوسمتي
مجموع الاوسمة
: 4
تاريخ الإنضمام :
Sep 2009
رقم العضوية :
7857
المشاركات:
12,768
سنكلير لويس
(
7 فبراير
1885
-
10 يناير
1951
)، أديب
أمريكي
، توفي بسبب إدمانه على الشرب. درس في
جامعة يايل
حصل على
جائزة نوبل في الأدب
لسنة
1930
.
حادثة جائزة نوبل
يحكى أن خلال مراسم
جوائز نوبل
لم يعثر عليه ليتسلم جائزته من يد الملك
السويدي
ووجد نائماً في دورة المياه التابعة لدار الكونسرتو وهو في أسوأ حالات السكر وقد أغلق عليه باب المرحاض.
[1]
Harry Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an
American
novelist
,
short-story
writer, and
playwright
. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to be awarded the
Nobel Prize in Literature
, "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of characters." His works are known for their insightful
[1]
and critical views of American society and
capitalist
values, as well as for their strong characterizations of modern working women.
He has been honored by the
U.S. Postal Service
with a
Great Americans series
postage stamp
.
Biography
Childhood and education
Born in the village of
Sauk Centre
,
Minnesota
, Lewis began reading books at a young age and kept a diary. He had two siblings, Fred (born 1875) and Claude (born 1878).
- His father, Edwin J. Lewis,
was a physician and a stern disciplinarian who
had difficulty relating to his sensitive, unathletic third son
.
-
Lewis's mother, Emma Kermott Lewis, died in 1891
. وعمره 6 سنوات
The following year, Edwin Lewis married Isabel Warner, whose company young Lewis apparently enjoyed
.
-
Throughout his
lonely boyhood
, the ungainly Lewis — tall, extremely thin, stricken with
acne
and somewhat popeyed —
-
-had trouble gaining friends and pined after various local girls.
-
At the age of 13 he unsuccessfully ran away from home, wanting to
become a drummer boy in the
Spanish-American War
.
In late 1902 Lewis left home for a year at Oberlin Academy (the then-preparatory department of
Oberlin College
) to qualify for acceptance by
Yale University
. While at Oberlin, he developed a religious enthusiasm that waxed and waned for much of his remaining teenage years. He entered Yale in 1903 but did not receive his
bachelor's degree
until 1908, having taken time off to work at
Helicon Home Colony
,
Upton Sinclair
's
cooperative
-living colony in
Englewood
,
New Jersey
, and to travel to
Panama
. Lewis's unprepossessing looks, "fresh" country manners and seemingly self-important loquacity made it difficult for him to win and keep friends at Oberlin and Yale. He did initiate a few relatively long-lived friendships among students and professors, some of whom recognized his promise as a writer.
[3]
Early career
Lewis's earliest published creative work—romantic poetry and short sketches—appeared in the
Yale Courant
and the
Yale Literary Magazine
, of which he became an editor. After graduation Lewis moved from job to job and from place to place in an effort to make ends meet, write fiction for publication and to chase away boredom. While working for newspapers and publishing houses (and for a time at the
Carmel-by-the-Sea
,
California
writers' colony), he developed a facility for turning out shallow, popular stories that were purchased by a variety of magazines. He also earned money by selling plots to
Jack London
, including one for the latter's unfinished novel
The Assassination Bureau, Ltd
.
Lewis's first published book was
Hike and the Aeroplane
, a
Tom Swift
-style
potboiler
that appeared in 1912 under the pseudonym Tom Graham.
Sinclair Lewis's first serious novel,
Our Mr. Wrenn: The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man
, appeared in 1914, followed by
The Trail of the Hawk: A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life
(1915) and
The Job
(1917). That same year also saw the publication of another potboiler,
The Innocents: A Story for Lovers
, an expanded version of a
serial
story that had originally appeared in
Woman's Home Companion
.
Free Air
, another refurbished serial story, was published in 1919.
Marriage and family
In 1914 Lewis married Grace Livingston Hegger, an editor at
Vogue
magazine. They had one son, Wells Lewis (1917–1944), named after British author
H. G. Wells
. Wells Lewis was killed in action while serving in the U.S. Army in
World War II
.
Lewis divorced Grace in 1925. On May 14, 1928, he married
Dorothy Thompson
, a political newspaper columnist. Later in 1928, he and Dorothy purchased a second home in rural Vermont.
[4]
They had a son, Michael Lewis, in 1930. Their marriage had virtually ended by 1937, and they divorced in 1942. Michael Lewis became an actor, and died in 1975 at age 44.
Commercial success
Upon moving to
Washington, D.C.
, Lewis devoted himself to writing. As early as 1916, he began taking notes for a realistic novel about small-town life. Work on that novel continued through mid-1920, when he completed
Main Street
, which was published on October 23, 1920.
[5]
As his biographer
Mark Schorer
wrote, the phenomenal success of
Main Street
"was the most sensational event in twentieth-century American publishing history."
[6]
Based on sales of his prior books, Lewis's most optimistic projection was a sale of 25,000 copies. In the first six months of 1921,
Main Street
sold 180,000 [ this figure needs verifying, since it does not agree with the figure of 250,000 copies mentioned in the separate Main Street (novel) Wiki entry ], and within a few years, sales were estimated at two million.
[7]
According to Richard Lingeman, "
Main Street
earned Sinclair Lewis about three million current [2002] dollars".[
citation needed
]
Lewis followed up this first great success with
Babbitt
(1922), a novel that satirized the American commercial culture and
boosterism
. The story was set in the fictional Midwestern town of
Zenith, Winnemac
, a setting to which Lewis would return in future novels, including
Gideon Planish
and
Dodsworth
.
Lewis continued his success in the 1920s with
Arrowsmith
(1925), a novel about the challenges faced by an idealistic doctor. It was awarded the
Pulitzer Prize
(which Lewis refused). Adapted as a 1931
Hollywood film
directed by
John Ford
and starring
Ronald Colman
, it was nominated for four
Academy Awards
.
Next Lewis published
Elmer Gantry
(1927), which depicted an
evangelical
minister as deeply hypocritical. The novel was denounced by many religious leaders and banned in some U.S. cities.
Adapted for the screen
more than a generation later, the novel was the basis of the 1960 movie starring
Burt Lancaster
, who earned a
Best Actor
Oscar for his performance.
Lewis closed out the decade with
Dodsworth
(1929), a novel about the most affluent and successful members of American society. He portrayed them as leading essentially pointless lives in spite of great wealth and advantages. The book was adapted for the
Broadway
stage in 1934 by
Sidney Howard
, who also wrote the screenplay for the 1936 film version. Directed by
William Wyler
and a great success at the time, the film is still highly regarded. In 1990, it was selected for preservation in the
United States National Film Registry
, and in 2005
Time
magazine named it one of the "100 Best Movies" of the past 80 years.
[8]
During the late 1920s and 1930s, Lewis wrote many short stories for a variety of magazines and publications. "Little Bear Bongo" (1936), a tale about a bear cub who wanted to escape the circus in search of a better life in the real world, was published in
Cosmopolitan
magazine.
[9]
The story was acquired by
Walt Disney Pictures
in 1940 for a possible feature film. World War II sidetracked those plans until 1947. Disney used the story (now titled "Bongo") as part of its feature
Fun and Fancy Free
.
[
edit
]
Alcoholism
After an alcoholic binge in 1937, Lewis checked into the
Austen Riggs Center
, a psychiatric hospital in
Stockbridge, Massachusetts
, for treatment. His doctors gave Lewis a blunt assessment that he needed to decide "whether he was going to live without alcohol or die by it, one or the other."
[10]
Lewis checked out after 10 days, lacking, one of his physicians wrote to a colleague, any "fundamental understanding of his problem
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