Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Cambridge Companions To Literature
- The Cambridge Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Chronology
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Youth, Maturation, and Adult Sexuality
- Chapter 2 The Beautiful and Damned and Literary Decadence
- Chapter 3 The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Chapter 4 “The Modern Old Master”
- Chapter 5 “I Was Gone Again”
- Chapter 6 Fitzgerald’s Expatriate Years and the European Stories
- Chapter 7 Legends of Zelda
- Chapter 8 Fitzgerald’s Nonfiction
- Chapter 9 Great Art, Small Art, and Modernist Cachet
- Chapter 10 Fitzgerald and Hollywood
- Chapter 11 Fitzgerald’s Cultural and Critical Reputation in the Twenty-First Century
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 7 - Legends of Zelda
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 October 2023
- The Cambridge Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Cambridge Companions To Literature
- The Cambridge Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Chronology
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Youth, Maturation, and Adult Sexuality
- Chapter 2 The Beautiful and Damned and Literary Decadence
- Chapter 3 The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Chapter 4 “The Modern Old Master”
- Chapter 5 “I Was Gone Again”
- Chapter 6 Fitzgerald’s Expatriate Years and the European Stories
- Chapter 7 Legends of Zelda
- Chapter 8 Fitzgerald’s Nonfiction
- Chapter 9 Great Art, Small Art, and Modernist Cachet
- Chapter 10 Fitzgerald and Hollywood
- Chapter 11 Fitzgerald’s Cultural and Critical Reputation in the Twenty-First Century
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald was every 5′3 ½″ a lady, but she outdrank men from Montgomery to Manhattan to Marseilles. Her short stories were so good that, sometimes, they appeared under her husband Scott's name. She was a gifted painter whose work was mostly bought out of pity, lost forever because it was unsigned and often given away, and burned by a protective, possibly jealous sister. She was a gifted dancer who began in earnest too late and never got a real chance. She was an early feminist heroine. She has inspired classic fantasy-action video games, lines of clothing, agenda-driven biographies, and novels from the beautiful to the damnable. She is catnip to movies and television series and is the current subject of two major biopics, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Scarlett Johansson. The legends of Zelda go on and on, from shortly after her birth in 1900 to the present day, and surely beyond. Yet the truths of Zelda, as we can find them, are much finer and more meaningful than all the legends they still beget. It is time to realize how much they can round out, and also increase, the legend.
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- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald , pp. 154 - 176Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023