Culture in the Interwar Period

Ch. 9.4

Lost Generation

• What is the Lost Generation?

• Literally, it is the generation of people born between 1883 and 1900.

• They were disillusioned by World War I.

• Known in Europe as the “1914 Generation” or the Génération au Feu.

• But…

Lost generation• The phrase was coined by Gertrude Stein (spoken to• Hemingway): “You are all a lost generation.”• Group of American writers in the Post-World War One era• who were:• Displeased with American social values, sexual and• aesthetic conventions, and established morality• First fled to cities such as Chicago and San• Francisco; then to Paris, London, Madrid, Barcelona,• and Rome (in particular, Montparnasse).• Disillusioned by World War One.• All pioneered new ways of writing, rebelling against• the traditional Victorian literary style.• Included writers such as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott• Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Gertrude Stein, and T.S.• Eliot

NAZI Propoganda

• Leni Riefensthal “Triumph of the Will”-propaganda documentary of the rise of NAZISM

• Hitler condemned modern art and literature as obscene.

Art

• Abstract Art- having only intrinsic form with little or no attempt at pictorial representation or narratie content

DADA

Life had no purpose. DADA art follows no rules, is nonsensical.

Surrealism

• Reality in the unconsciousness.• Salvador Dali-most famous surrealist painter

Literature

• Stream of Consciousness-innermost thoughts expressed

• James Joyce-Ulysses-everyday life in Dublin

• Herman Hesse- spiritual loneliness in mechanized society

Physics

• Werner Heisenberg- Uncertainty principle-All physical laws are unpredictable, and therefore uncertain. This fit well with the feelings of uncertainty in the world during this post WW I era.