Word: wohl
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Herein lies the frustration of Wohl's book. Amidst portraits of arrogant intellectuals who contemplate the dilettante theories of their predecessors lie intriguing portraits of exciting thinkers like Montherlant. Wohl devotes only three pages to Montherlant, an author whose heroes "enjoy the sensation of being able to dispose of their lives the way they chose." This "knight of nothingness" shines as the only important thinker in the first chapter, and he is an obvious predecessor of the existentialists. Yet Wohl makes no attempt to draw out the connection with existential thought. The analysis of Montherlant is a concise summation devoid...
...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...