Schneider, Daniel H.  "The Novel as Pure Poetry."  In Bloom, Harold, ed. 
        Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms.  New York: Chelsea House,
        1987: 9-24.

        Citing a definition by Robert Penn Warren that "pure poetry" excludes the extraneous, Schneider charts the emotional structure of the novel, stipulating that Hemingway maintained his discipline in cutting out anything that would dilute the overall emotion of relentless "bitterness, disgust, . . . desolation of soul, . . . [and] remorse" (9-10).

He cites the "killer world" passage from chapter 34, typifying it as "the world's malevolence" (10).  Stylistically, Hemingway fastens on one "objective correlative" of this emotion and reintroduces in various forms throughout the novel--most notably by rain (12-13).  Citing Lillian Ross's interview of Hemingway in which he likened his method to that of Cézanne and of Bach, Schneider carries the analogy to music as a "repetition of central symbols" (13), analyzing the opening of the novel in detail (13-16).  Then he analyzes the structure of the entire novel, suggesting that the interlude with Catherine in Milan and the more significant interlude with her in Switzerland only serve as opposites of the overall emotions and therefore heighten them when the war intercedes and especially when the final doom comes (16-24).  Thus, the novel is a lyric, an example of a carefully unified portrayal of one dominant emotion. 

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