CULTUREBETWEEN THE WARS

Mr. Louchheim

SCIENCEAlbert Einstein

Theory of Relativity: space

and time measurements are

not absolute

E=mc2

Sigmund Freud•Human behavior is irrational•Unconscious = irrational part of the mind•Weakened faith in reason•“The dream is the [disguised] fulfillment of a [suppressed, repressed] wish.”•Mind in constant struggle 3 entities:

–id (amoral, irrational instincts)–ego (mediates btw. id & superego)–superego (morals/expectations imposed by society)

LITERATUREfrom Finnegan’s Wake, by James Joyce

• Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passen-core rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggyisthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: norhad topsawyer's rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselseto Laurens County's gorgios while they went doublin their mumperall the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe totauftauf thuartpeatrick not yet, though venissoon after, had akidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all's fair invanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot apeck of pa's malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and roryend to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface.The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonner-ronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthur-nuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and lateron life down through all christian minstrelsy. The great fall of theoffwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan,erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sendsan unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes:and their upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the parkwhere oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since dev-linsfirst loved livvy.

James JoyceUlysses 1922Finnegan’s Wake 1939

Stream of Consciousness=literary technique by which the writer gives an account of the innermost feelings of a character

T.S. Eliotfrom The Waste Land, 1922

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow

Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,

And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,

And the dry stone no sound of water. Only

There is shadow under this red rock,

(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),

And I will show you something different from either

Your shadow at morning striding behind you

Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

PHILOSOPHYExistentialism

• Philosophy based on the idea that people give meaning to their lives through their choices and actions

• Characterized by confusion in the face of a seemingly meaningless world

Friedrich Nietzsche

• Western ideas such as democracy, reason and progress stifled people’s creativity and actions

• “The insane man jumped into their midst and transfixed them with his glances. ‘Where is God gone?" he called out. "I mean to tell you! We have killed him, you and I!...God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! …There never was a greater event - and on account of it, all who are born after us belong to a higher history than any history hitherto!’"

ARTSurrealism

• Surreal=beyond or above reality• Salvador Dali=most famous surrealist artist

• Salvador Dali Sleep

Death and Fire by Paul Klee

Abstract Art

• Pablo Picasso First Steps (1943)

• Cubism=art movement in which objects are broken up, analyzed and reassembled in an abstract form

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon

Pablo Picasso (1907)

Las Meninas by

Velazquez (1656)

Las Meninas- Picasso

Composition VII, Wassily Kandinsky (1913)

Pillars of SocietybyGeorge Grosz

Fountain by

Marcel

Duchamp

(1917)

Music - Atonal

Arnold Schonberg

•Organized sound without any recognizable harmony•Developed “twelve tone” technique – plays all 12 notes in scale as equally as possible

Music - JazzLouis Armstrong

Duke Ellington

Ella Fitzgerald

Women = Flappers

• As a result of WWI many countries gave women the right to vote

• Women became economically independent• Women began to challenge traditional roles

- they married later

- had less children

- entered professions such as medicine, journalism and education

Women prior to WWI

New Fashion for Women

• Shorter Dresses- the hemlines moved to above the ankle for the first time.

• Women wore bare arms and clear nylons• Women cut their hair in short, sleek hairstyles

“bobbed”• The new silhouette was ‘boyish’- with narrow

hips and flat chests• All these new fashions were considered very

risqué!

To what extent did the

intellectual movements after

WWI reflect an Age of Anxiety?