Fitzgerald and the ‘roaring 20s’

F. Scott Fitzgerald didn’t just write about the glamour, excess and hangover of the ‘roaring 20s’; he lived them too. His works chart the stunning rise and dizzying fall of the rich, beautiful and damned in a changing world of jazz, Prohibition, cars, car crashes, boom, bust and a gathering storm in Europe. This course will explore Fitzgerald’s two greatest novels: The Great Gatsby, published in 1922, when Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda were the toast of the New York smart set, and Tender is the Night, an apparently messier, disillusioned chronicle of a doomed marriage and a lost generation, published in 1934, as Fitzgerald’s personal life was unravelling. We will explore Fitzgerald’s experiments with narrative perspective and technique, his sometimes problematic representation of women, his ambivalent relationship with American ideals and the ‘Old World’ of Europe.

This course runs over 5 weeks, Tuesdays am (10 – 12.15), and can be experienced in person or via Zoom, depending on preference, availability and Covid rules. Cost: £325