ONE OF THE GREAT PLEASURES of working on this book has been discovering the very wide range of opinion and reaction that Fitzgerald’s classic 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby, has generated through the years. Beyond the expected debate in the scholarly journals, I found through my research how deep and varied the book’s influence has been on American popular culture and discourse as well. In this regard, the study that follows at times diverges somewhat from the strict focus on analyzing trends and ideas in academic scholarship that is characteristic of the Literary Criticism in Perspective series. While my primary object of study is indeed the formal scholarship on Gatsby, to do justice to the profound cultural impact of this novel, I found it necessary — and rather enjoyable! — to look occasionally beyond the realm of scholarly books and journals, into the world of popular culture. From the coverage it has received in newspapers and magazines to adaptations, reworkings, and other assorted tips of the cap in fiction, film, theater, and music, The Great Gatsby has been a part of the larger cultural conversation in the United States over the past several decades, notably so in recent years. One of my goals in this study, then, is to attempt to account for the seemingly perpetual cultural relevance of a novel that, on its publication, was criticized for being too tied to its own historical moment to have any real shot at lasting appeal.

The main concern in the pages that follow, though, is to trace the scholarly reaction to the book through the years — in a sense, to tell a story about how and why Gatsby came to be considered a classic of American literature, while also accounting for the changing modes of interpretation that have affected our understanding of the novel. I look at not only what the evolution in critical perspectives says about the book itself, but also what it says about the changing interests, values, and methodologies in American literary criticism. If, as various critics have suggested, The Great Gatsby serves as a sort of mirror to both the ideals and the anxieties of American culture, it also might be said to reflect much the same about the critics who interpret its meaning.