Word: wohl
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...WOHL's most effective chapter is on Spain, which he devotes to the writer Jose Ortega y Gasset. Ortega's thoughts extend beyond the contemplation of generation to historical parallels for what he saw as a world in a state of anticipation of a new type of existence. With scholarly thoroughness, Wohl unearths Ortega's lectures on Galileo that illustrate Ortega's vision of history. This chapter is effective because it centers on one man whose thoughts were important, and who was sensitive to the world trends...
...rest of the book reads like a social register of minor literati. This is particularly true of the chapter on England, in which Wohl highlights two poets, Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon, both members of very wealthy families. Their poetry is important, but both lack any type of world framework or vision. Sassoon's poems are tainted by a masochistic love for the trenches. Brook's works are personal peieces of the impact of the war on his love life. Their perception of generation and the world view stems from the privilege and isolation of their socio-economic background...
...chapter on England destroys the credibility of Wohl's thesis: the importance of the individual perception of being of a generation. The Englishmen, like the Frenchmen, do not perceive themselves as belonging to a generation, they perceive themselves as belonging to an elite...
Their vision stems from the isolation of their social backgrounds. Thus Wohl's attempt to "rescue the generation from myth and restore it to history" is destroyed...
...Wohl's stated aim is to "shed light on the politics of early twentieth century intellectuals." In doing so, he skips such intellectuals as T.S. Eliot, Erich Remarque and American expatriates like Ezra Pound and Ernest Hemingway, who had both a political and intellectual vision. The negligence of Eliot is particularly blatant, especially in contrast to Wohl's paeons to the inferior poetry of Brooke and Sassoon...