When Sylvia Beach moved to Paris in August of 1916, she formally left her American home and sought the life she had always dreamed of. She hoped to find solace in literature and writing—things that were deemed passé and frivolous in the states. While this was a radical move for this young expatriate, she was not alone in her search for a more liberal lifestyle. At the end of WWI, many artists, who would later call themselves the Lost Generation, moved to Paris for the same reasons as Ms. Beach; they wanted to express themselves with grandeur and sought refuge in a place where they were mentally free. To the Lost Generation, Paris meant freedom; freedom from politics, freedom of art and freedom from conformity.

Although the end of WWI marked the beginning of hard times for families living in America, the political scene was very different in Paris. The ideals were much more liberal and new than anything that had been experienced in the states, and as a result, many young Americans were willing to leave their mother country in order to discover their political identity. In Noel Riley Fitch’s biography Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation she reveals “[t]he First World War had brought many writers to Europe and to an encounter with history and the failure of their religious and political beliefs” in order to demonstrate many of the frustrations these young writers where exhibiting (162). As a result of WWI, these writers looked at the past and saw an opportunity for change in the political atmosphere of America, and because they were unable to change these set political beliefs, the writers chose to flee. When they fled to Paris, they found a city that had an equal amount of angst, as far as politics were involved, but Paris was more open and allowed these writers to express themselves freely.

While these writers and artists left America for political disagreements, they never denounced their pride of coming from such a sturdy nation. It would be incorrect to assume that these people left because they were in some way embarrassed of America, rather “they went to Paris to exchange business and moral prejudices for their own aesthetic prejudices” (164). Instead of attempting to change the political beliefs that were set in the American stone, they decided to trade nations, but keep their national pride. Additionally, Fitch reminds her readers “[i]n spite of the loud denunciations of the United States by a few, most never shook off—or wished to shake off—their American cultural values. On the contrary, in Paris many ‘found’ America” (163). The political freedom that Paris allowed these writers and artists helped them to better understand themselves as Americans and discover a new respect for their native land.

While the artists and writers of the Lost Generation experienced the freedom of political tolerance, they were also able to understand and act upon the artistic freedom that Paris allowed them. These writers and artists were not writing pieces of political propaganda that defined the times, rather, they wrote about topics that were relevant to their lives and defined them as individual writers. In George Wickes Americans in Paris, he describes the solitude experienced by E.E. Cummings when he first began writing in Paris, “[t]he phenomenon was New York City, where he had spent the months before going to war; the miracle was Paris” (71). As one of the most influential poets of the Lost Generation and the 20th century, E.E. Cummings quickly picked up on and acted upon the artistic freedom he discovered in the divinity that was Paris. And he was not alone:

Gertrude Stein defended lesbianism, Fitzgerald exposed the high-class society of America and Hemingway himself was never “lost” but could empathize with the masses. Although these writers, and many more like them, discussed crucial topics, the majority of works that were produced by the Lost Generation would have gone by the wayside had they attempted to find artistic freedom in America.

Not only were these writers and artists able to freely express their opinions through their work, they also discovered an entirely new world of literary value. Every author, poet, painter or musician was able to feed off one another, due to the collective ideals that were swarming about Paris. In Fitch’s biography, she reminds us “[t]he literary community was in Paris: publishers of the new literature, little reviews that carried the latest poetry and reviews of that poetry, a bookshop and library where all the latest work was available” (163). Every artist was able to draw inspiration and ideas from these sources of criticism, while continuing to find their own literary stance. Paris was essentially an artistic think tank that evolved around the idea of freedom of expression, through artistic and literary ability.

Due to the liberal atmosphere in Paris, the writers and artists of the Lost Generation dodged conformity and paved their own paths with their new-found freedom. While many of these paved paths were of the literary variety, many of the Lost Generation participants chose alternative lifestyles that did not conform or agree with the societies outside of Paris. For instance, many of the women of the Generation practiced their right of homosexuality, a lifestyle that would not have been accepted inside the Unites States. Gertrude Stein, Alice Toklas, Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier were just a few of the women who defied the stereotypical gender role of women, that of a homemaker, and chose to reveal their true identities by living with the women they loved. They smoked cigarettes and drank right along with the men and were considered equals by their male contemporaries. Many of the women were writers of equal stature as the men and were able to provide a similar impact. In Wickes’ book he argues that Gertrude Stein “has had a considerable influence on the writing of the generation that followed hers” which shows that Stein’s contribution continued beyond the years of the Lost Generation (32).

Along with Stein’s contributions to the literary world, Sylvia Beach certainly helped in the progression of the Lost Generation, for it was Beach who single-handedly worked towards getting James Joyce’s Ulysses published and read by the masses. What is today hailed as one of the greatest pieces of Modernist literature, Joyce’s Ulysses would never have been brought to life had it not been for Sylvia Beach. It was one of the first times in literary history that an author composed a story through the stream-of –consciousness writing style, and included many radical topics that had rarely been exposed in literature before. Despite these setbacks, Beach worked tirelessly to scrounge up publishers who were willing to duplicate such a controversial novel. She even went so far as to smuggle a copy of the novel into the United States “sometimes wrapped as the

Complete Works of William Shakespeare” in order to disguise her lofty ambitions (Fitch 14). Had it not been for her bravery and perseverance, the world would never have known Ulysses, one of the defining books of the Lost Generation, or James Joyce, one of the main influential voices of his time.

Along side the women of the Lost Generation, many of the men where unwilling to conform to societal norms, as far as their writing was concerned. Hemingway bred a new form of writing that involved omissions from the text in order to make the reader think about the story, Fitzgerald was fearless when exposing the vanity of the wealthy in The Great Gatsby, which is today hailed as one of the greatest American novels, and E.E. Cummings never capitalized in his poetry. It was because of their disdain towards conformity that the men and women of the Lost Generation were able to produce some of the greatest works of the 20th century. Had it not been for the freedom from conformity that was prevalent throughout Paris, the writers and artists of the time may have never had to the opportunity to find their voices.

The freedom in Paris at the end of WWI created a haven for up and coming writers and artists. It was a city full of possibility for anyone who wanted to defy society and discover themselves. As a result of this freedom, some of the greatest work of the 20th century was produced by the Lost Generation, and had it not been for the free atmosphere circulating throughout Paris, the talent of the Generation would never have been able to flourish.