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A Clash of Certainties, Old and New: For Whom the Bell Tolls and the Inner War of Ernest Hemingway
- The Hemingway Review
- University of Idaho Department of English
- Volume 29, Number 1, Fall 2009
- pp. 103-122
- 10.1353/hem.0.0052
- Article
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For decades, critics have argued over the politics and worldview in Hemingway's novel of the Spanish Civil War. By looking closely at the author's pre-war writings and his experience and writings during the war, as well as by performing a close reading of key passages, this essay attempts to illuminate the novel's ambiguities and dissonances, arguing that they can be traced to warring certainties within Hemingway that found expression in the work. By evolving beyond isolationism, partisanship, and disillusionment, Hemingway gained greater access to a Keatsian "negative capability," marking an enlarged perspective and greater maturity in his art.