Theodore Dreiser Biography

Born: on August 27, after a fire that destroyed wool reserves, his father worked at a construction site, where he was heavily crippled. Soon three eldest sons died. The family moved for a long time and, in the end, settled in the provincial city of Terre-Hot in Indiana. Theodore Dreiser, the ninth child in the family, was born on August 27 in graduating from school. He entered the University of Indian in Bloomington.

A year later, he stopped his studies due to the fact that he could not pay for his studies. After he worked as a clerk, the cartoon of the van ... laundry. He moved to New York. His brother Paul Dresser organizes the Eve Month music magazine, and Dreiser begins to work in it as an editor. The magazine leaves. One of the first literary works published by the Dreiser is the essay “The Artistic Quarter of New York: the literary and artistic shelter in Broxville” November before the appearance of his first novel in Dreizer published 42 articles and a number of poems.

The Dreiser indicated in an interview for the directory “Who is who is in America”, that he was written by two books: “A study on famous contemporaries” - Essays on William II, Barnum, etc. Typically, the bibliography of the work of the Dreiser begins with his novel “Kerry’s sister” by this work Dreizer continued the realistic traditions of the writers of America at the end of the 19th century, but already in the conditions of the decline of this movement.

The novel was met by criticism and society extremely hostile as a “immoral” work. Without prejudices and the usual Puritanism at that time, Dreiser gave the realistic image of a girl opposing generally accepted moral views.

Only in the Dreiser published his second novel - Jenny Gerhardt, in which he develops the motives of Kerry's sister. The American press went around the novel by silence. Roman “Financier” Dreiser began his monumental “Trilogy of desire”. It is based on the life story of a millionaire C. The hero of the “trilogy” the second volume - “Titan”,; To the third one - Stoik - Dreiser began in January - Frank Caucerewood; The Dreiser shows how the bourgeois and commercial environment that surrounded Caulumwood has already formed in it the psychology of the businessman and the acquirer, for whom all means are good if they help to achieve power and wealth.

Starting with minor speculation, Caucerwood gradually acquires a fortune, captivates officials and municipality, illegally acquires city concessions in Philadelphia, but in the final suffers, gets into prison and then is forced to leave Philadelphia. In the novel “Titan”, the Dreiser unfolds the life of Caucerwood in Chicago, where the cycle of his activity in Philadelphia is repeated on the expanded base.

With exceptional visual power, the Dreiser and the customs of the financial environment outlines the Dreiser. The attacks of conservative critics were especially intensified after the publication in the novel “Genius”, which Dreiser considers his best work. At the insistence of the “Society for the Destruction of the Vice”, the court prohibited the spread of the novel, and only later this ban was lifted.

The theme of the novel is the power of money and sensuality over art. The hero of the novel is the artist of Vitla, the purpose of which is reduced only to art and women. This devastates his work, he becomes a successful businessman, loses his artistic abilities. In his novel, the American Tragedy Dreiser leads the middle American young man Griffiths, poorly educated, frivolous, weak -willed.

The essence of the tragedy of Griffith, who ends his life in an electric chair, is his social inappropriate to the surrounding reality, combined with the desire to advance, occupy an exceptional position, enter bourgeois circles. Griffith is a victim of American pseudo -democratism. As in all his novels, the Dreiser in the American Tragedy gives a wide picture of the morals and life of the environment he depicted.

The novel is considered one of the most successful works of the writer. Immediately after the release, he received good reviews of criticism. Dreiser is a naturalist artist. He builds his works on the enormous material of observations and experience. His art is the art of accurate image, the art of facts and things. Dreiser conveys life in all his smallest details, he introduces documents, sometimes almost entirely taken from reality, Roberta Olden’s letter in the “American tragedy” is given almost entirely, quotes the press, extensively explains the exchange speculations of their heroes, carefully traces the development of their business enterprises, etc.

American critics have repeatedly accused Dreiser of the lack of style, not understanding the special nature of his naturalistic style. Dreiser in all his works gravitates to social topics, which does not prevent him from being a psychologist. Taking public topics, he moves them to the plane of an individual psyche, showing as a result the psychological and individual side of large social phenomena.

The restriction of the topic in volume is accompanied by the Dreiser of its recess.The Dreiser owns two collections of stories - “Liberation” and “Chains”, in which mainly psychological and sexual motifs are developed. He also wrote two volumes of the plays: “Gonchar’s hand” and “Natural and Supernatural plays” Early Early Essays Dreiser about New York were collected in his book “Picture of the Great City” in the poems of the Dreiser “mood”, close in form to Walt Whitman.

The “Gallery of Women” contains biographical essays of the Dreiser, as well as in the book “Twelve Men”. Dreiser turns to a variety of public layers, looking for original, outstanding people in them. But the Gallery of Women is sharply different from the “twelve men” in that the Dreiser emphasizes the sexual one, it is in sexually that he is looking for explanations of not only purely subjective, but also social actions and processes.

Roman Dreiser - “Madness” represents a series of love episodes, united by the fact that one hero is set in the center - the author himself. The Nobel Prize in literature was nominated for the Dreiser's candidacy. In May, the autobiographical book of the Dreiser “Dawn” is published, where he described his childhood and youth. He accepted the invitation to visit the USSR and take part in the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution.

In early November, he arrived in the Soviet Union and on November 7 was on Red Square. After the trip, he published the book "Dreiser looks at Russia." At the beginning of X in the US mining regions - Harlan and Bella - there were clashes of miners with the police. Together with the commission of the Committee for the Protection of Political Prisoners, the Dreiser goes to the scene.

He was met by threats to physical reprisals by the owners of mines and the police. A court lawsuit was aroused against Dreiser and offered to withdraw him, provided that the writer would stop the coverage of events. However, Dreiser continued his performances in the newspapers and on the radio, reporting on the situation - beatings of the union and police reprisals.

In him, he publishes the book "Tragic America." Dreiser often performed at rallies, published on the pages of the US communist press. He supported the candidate from the American Communist Party of William Foster in the election campaign. He was delegated to the Dreiser at an anti -war conference in Paris, opened in connection with the bombing of the Spanish cities.

In the summer he visited Barcelona, ​​where he met with the president and prime minister of the country. On the way back he visited England, where he hoped to meet with members of the English government. In the United States, he managed to achieve a short -term meeting with Roosevelt. After that, he tried unsuccessfully to organize the committee for the supply of food to Spain.

As a result, at the direction of Roosevelt, several cargo ships with flour were sent to Spain. He died on December 28