Map(1): Introducing Langston Hughes, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, and Tennessee Williams

Langston Hughes:

1. Hughes was raised primarily by his grandmother. She told him important stories of the African-American oral tradition that would influence his work.
2. Hughes’ father wanted him to become an engineer, so Hughes attended Columbia for a time. He left because of racial intolerance and because he wanted to spend more time writing in Harlem.
3. He graduated from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania in 1929. Among his classmates was future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
4. For a number of years, Hughes was attracted to some of the political philosophies of the Communist Party. Though accused of being a member, he never actually joined
5. Hughes died of prostate cancer in 1967 at the age of 65. His ashes are buried in Harlem under a special medallion in the Arthur Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Ernest Hemingway:

1.  Hemingway met J.D. Salinger during World War II. Salinger was fighting with the 12th Infantry Regiment
2. Hemingway’s memoir A Moveable Feast, about his life in Paris in the 1920s, was not published until 1964.
3.  Hemingway only wrote one play called The Fifth Column and it is set during the Spanish Civil War
4. Hemingway was awarded a Bronze Star for his bravery under-fire in World War II when he was a war correspondent.
5. Hemingway left trunks of material in the Paris Ritz in 1928 and did not recover them until 1957
6. Hemingway’s sister and brother, and also his father committed suicide as well.
7. The FBI maintained an open file on Hemingway from World War II onwards.

Ezra Pound:

1. Pound was a great admirer of William Butler Yeats, believing him to be the greatest living poet at the time. They even lived together for a short time during World War I, and Pound briefly served as Yeats’ secretary
2. Pound was married to Dorothy Shakespear, who was the daughter of Olivia Shakespear, a former lover of W. B. Yeats. A few years after marrying Shakespear, Pound began a romantic relationship with violinist Olga Rudge. The three carried on a romantic relationship until Pound’s death nearly fifty years later
3. Pound was also a noted translator of Asian literature. He revived many Confucian works and brought Japanese poetry and drama into the forefront in America and Europe
4. Music became a large part of Pound’s life in the 1920s. He is mainly responsible for bringing Vivaldi’s music back into popularity
5. Pound was friends with Ernest Hemingway, who tried to teach Pound to box. Hemingway said of the experience, “I was never able to teach him to throw a left hook.”

Tennessee Williams:

1. Williams’ mentally ill sister, Rose, was lobotomized and provided the inspiration for tragic characters in Suddenly, Last Summer and The Glass Menagerie. His domineering, unstable mother was the basis for Amanda Wingfield inMenagerie and Blanche DuBois in Streetcar
2. His real name is Thomas Lanier Williams. His friends gave him the nickname “Tennessee” because of his thick Southern drawl
3. Williams caused controversy with his screenplay for Baby Doll, a Lolita-esque drama about a middle-aged man’s obsession with a teenage girl.
4. One of his most famous plays, A Streetcar Named Desirewas originally titled The Poker Night
5. Williams succumbed to the addictions he so often portrayed in his plays. Alcohol and prescription drugs contributed to his death by choking in 1983.