Faulkner, Hemingway, et al.: The Emersonian Test of American Authorship

Contends that Hemingway exemplifies America’s amplification of the visual, passing Emerson’s test of the “tyrannous eye.” Meyers attributes Faulkner’s failure to his inability to transcend his southernism, which overpowers the American nature of his stories. Argues that unlike Faulkner, Hemingway accepts natural experience without preconceived cultural expectation. Brief references to “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” and The Old Man and the Sea. Also published in Journal of Popular Culture 21, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 35-42