L'immagine di Hemingway: storia di un mito “fotogenico”

Abstract

Ernest Hemingway's photographic portraits constitute an extremely significant dimension in the comprehension of his literary myth, inasmuch his visual representation contributed to the construction of his public role. Hemingway was indeed one of the most photographed writers in the history of the American literature, a condition which concurred to solidify his celebrity. By browsing Hemingway's iconography, the purpose of this essay is that of demonstrating how photographs that depict the several Italian stages of his life (for example, World War One or the aftermath of World War Two) define two pivotal vectors in the construction of his fame. In particular, I wish to highlight how the images of Hemingway (both on the Italian front and during his recovery in Milan) impacted the structuring of his public image, strictly related to some well-known passages of Hemingway's books, such as A Farewell to Arms(1929) and Across the River and into the Trees(1950). The correspondences that emerge by comparing the Hemingway's literary dimension and his biography partially support and partially integrate Scott Donaldson's argument according to which Hemingway's literary opus composes a sort of “unauthorized” autobiography: Hemingway's photographic archive runs along such a narrative, and authenticates and reinforces the version that the writer proposed to his audience.