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=Harry Sinclair Lewis by Ashlyn Elizabeth Reaves=

Harry Sinclair Lewis was born February 7, 1885 in the prairie town of Sauk Centre, Minnesota. He graduated from Yale University in 1908, and yearned for fame and fortune. Anxious and deranged, Sinclair Lewis always seemed out of tune with people and places. He was an outsider and his peers looked at him as different. In his town library he found the works of Sir Walter Scott and Charles Dickens, who were a great influence on his writing. Sinclair Lewis’s earlier writing showed his need to acknowledge his own “nonconformist nature and ambitions: his agnosticism, his literary inclinations, and his general rebellion against the village’s preference for unquestioning adherence to established standards of thought, faith, and aesthetics.” (Discovering Authors) He became one of the leading American novelists of the 1920’s, and created some of the most effective satires in American Literature. Patterns that appeared in almost all of his novels were the attacks on the dullness, the smug provincialism, and the socially enforced conformity of the American middle class. Lewis was famous for several novels published in the 1920’s which included Main Street (1920), Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), Elmer Gantry (1927), and Dodsworth (1929). In these novels, he created repulsive yet bothersome recognizable caricatures of middle class Americans. People at first think that his works are charming and quaint, but that is the exact opposite. His novels gave definite insights into the double think of Americans of the second half of the twentieth century, just as they did in the first half of the century. According to Nan Bauer Maglin, Lewis was “blessed with a sociological imagination and the capacity to see and be interested in the interplay of man and society, biological and history of the self and world.” There was a central focus of each novel that he wrote and that was the dilemma of either work or marriage; The Job (1917) and Ann Vickers (1933) are two good examples where Lewis wrote about these topics. Sinclair Lewis’s goal was to point out and preach the sanctity of the individual against the masses. When he criticized Middle America, he introduced a new idea that people had never thought of. “He was the first, and the best to describe the daily life of the upper Midwest and the small business farmers who lived there.” (Rosenblum) Lewis’s early short stories and novels reflect that they are “conventional, optimistic, lightly humorous, and were written for a middle class audience.” (Discovering Authors) Lewis was discontent with writing “the more smiling aspects of life, which are the more American” as William Dean Howells would put it. One common concern among critics of Lewis’s work is the non-caring attitude expressed throughout the author’s mature fiction toward the American middle-class. But throughout his works he acknowledged his love/hate relationship with small-town America, in which he admitted that one of the characters in his novel was a portrait of himself. Daniel R. Brown once said about Lewis’s satire “To write satire is to perform a miracle. One must hate the world so much that one’s hatred strikes sparks, but one must hate it only because it disappoints one’s invincible love for it.” Lewis had a lack of a clear vision of life and he had an impatient nature were often noted as crucial to understanding the weakness of his fiction from his works, the occasionally thrill tone, or the sometimes overly harsh exaggerations of society’s foibles and the bleak outlook that remains even after the disturbing ideas. But critics do say that Lewis had a great skill at mimicking and copying the appearance and speech of a common American. Lewis had a great characteristic ambivalence toward his subject matter, a paradoxical love and hate for the things he made fun of.” (Brown) Shortly before his death, Lewis remarked that he loved America but did not like it. Both the love and dislike are very evident in some of his best works which were in the 1920’s. It was his satires that made Lewis the most well-known author in the world during his lifetime. If Lewis retains any stature in American Literature, it will rest on his satire, which is the essence of his world view.

“Babbitt: Sinclair Lewis 1922.” __Novels for Students Volume 19__. Ed. Jennifer Smith. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2004. 26-47

The book __Novels for Students: Volume 19__ has a section on Sinclair Lewis. It has a biography about him; which consists of great information including awards he has won, all the books he has written and his personal his personal life. I used this information for my trading card. There was even a picture of him in which I traced it for my author trading card also. I would definitely recommend it to other students because instead of looking through several books; all the author information about his life right there. Brown, Daniel R. “Lewis’s Satire- A Negative Emphasis.” __Sinclair Lewis__. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. 51-62 Conroy, Stephen S. “Sinclair Lewis’s Sociological Imagination.” __Sinclair Lewis__. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. 71-82 Maglin, Nan Baller. “Women in Three Sinclair Lewis Novels.” __Sinclair Lewis.__ Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. 103-118

The book __Sinclair Lewis__ edited by Harold Bloom contains different articles by authors who are discussing Sinclair Lewis’s writing topics and visions. I am using this for my Wiki entry on Sinclair Lewis. The table of contents consists of all the topics of his books summed up into seven or eight articles. All the articles have great information and I would recommend this to other students. Bucco, Martin. “The Serialized Novels of Sinclair Lewis.” __Bloom’s Modern Critical Views: Sinclair Lewis (1987).__ Ebsco Literary Reference Center. < [|http://search.ebscohost.com] >.

This article “The Serialized Novels of Sinclair Lewis” explores the serialized novels of Sinclair Lewis and his phenomenal literary success and failure. It goes deep into some of his novels and explains why people craved his narratives. It also explains what Sinclair Lewis is known for which is his social satire. I used this information for my 500-700 word essay, and it was a lot of help. “Lewis, (Harry) Sinclair (1885-1951).” DISCovering Authors. Online ed. Detroit: Gale,2003. Student Resource Center- Gold. Gale. Fuquay Varina High School/WCPS/. 22 May. 2008 < [|http://www.galenet.com/servlet/srcx>

This article titled “Harry Sinclair Lewis” gives background on Sinclair Lewis and gives information on different novels that have been published. It explains Lewis personality and how he appeared through other peoples eyes. It explains his love and hate relationship between the middle class Americans and why he always wrote about them. I used this article for my essay also. Rosenblum, Joseph. “Sinclair Lewis.” Dictionary of World Biography: The 20th Century (1999). Ebsco Literary Reference Center. < [|http://search.ebscohost.com] >

The article “Sinclair Lewis” explains Sinclair Lewis’s early life and his family. It also talks about Lewis’s character traits and his abilities that are shown through his writing. I only used a little information from this article for my essay.