Who Were the Lost Generation Writers?
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- Опубліковано 10 лип 2024
- Here's the story of the writers, poets, and artists who came of age during World War One, commonly referred to as The Lost Generation. Music by Electric Needle Room. Produced by Matt Beat. All images found in the public domain.
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Once upon a time there was city, named Paris, France. During the 1920s, lots of Americans moved there to escape institutionalized racism and the associated race riots, xenophobia, censorship, materialism, and Prohibition. Perhaps most importantly, they escaped there because they could get a lot more stuff for their money due to a strong American dollar compared to a weaker French franc.
Many of these American expatriates, or people living outside their home country, were writers and artists. They felt like they had more artistic freedom there than the United States. Perhaps the most famous of this group was a writer named Ernest Hemingway. He wrote a book called The Sun Also Rises. Published in 1926, the book is about a group of American expatriates who travel from Paris to watch the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, among other things. At the beginning of the book, Hemingway quoted his friend and fellow writer Gertrude Stein, who called him and his friends “The Lost Generation.” Stein herself apparently heard the term from someone else, but regardless, from this point forward the writers who came of age during World War One widely became known as The Lost Generation.
All of these writers were American. While Hemingway, Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and T.S. Eliot were among the most famous associated with this group, other authors and artists that get lumped in include James Joyce, Sherwood Anderson, John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Aldous Huxley, Isadora Duncan, and Alan Seeger. Even composers like Aaron Copland get associated with the group.
The Lost Generation writers often wrote about exaggerated experiences from their own lives. Generally these experiences revolved around World War One and the years following it. They
used common themes in their writing such as the pointing out the ridiculously frivolous and materialistic lifestyles of the very rich, the breakdown of traditional gender roles, or the death of the American dream. Perhaps no novel better demonstrates all of the themes than the classic novel, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and published in 1925.
Why were they called a lost generation? Perhaps it was the general lack of purpose or ambition caused by having our their hopes and dreams crushed by the war. Having seen pointless death and destruction on a wide scale, many of them had lost faith in the more traditional way of life. Because of this, some became careless with their actions, not setting goals or working toward something great.
Eventually, the term Lost Generation referred to ALL Americans who came of age experiencing The Great War. Basically, we’re talking Americans born between 1883ish and 1900ish. It’s through the art, though, we feel like we really get to know who this generation was and what they truly felt while going through such a stressful and anxious time.
This is exactly what we’re experiencing now. With censorship ship at an all time high I can only imagine what we lost
Humor
I watched a generation video from a youtuber called “paint guy” and they said that gen z is the most like the lost generation with extreme similarities
@@NeostormXLMAX can you put link to video you talking about? I try to search it myself, but I can't find it.
Very well explained..thanks
i appreciate your making of the video. Your explanations for all those lost generation writers is brilliant. Your transcripts does everyone good when they don't catch the meaning.
If you'd like to learn a great deal more about The Lost Generation of writers, then go to the actual source - Sylvia Beach - who started and owned the first (and original) Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris. Her books, along with Gertrude Stein's works and Noel Riley Fitch's book, Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation, provide far more detail than this simple short video.
Your narrating voice and presentation are superb! Thank you, I will use this in my class.
I appreciate the kind words. Thanks for using it!
They suffered "survivor's guilt" as they also had to witness firsthand the atrocities of WW1. President Harding's back to normalcy letter did little to mitigate the trauma. PTSD before the phrase was even coined, let alone diagnosed. Small wonder they turned their back on tradition. But it takes pressure to make a diamond. Enter their children, the Greatest Generation. I'm sure they saw how war affected their parents and somehow they were able to adapt and become fortified themselves as young men and women. WW2 was yet another tragedy but once again the US prevailed. (With a little help from the Allied Powers, of course.)
Hey! Great video! I totally agree!
You are an outstanding explainner. I learn a lot.
Nice video,very interesting
Not just the war, but the "Spanish" Flu as well! The flu killed more people than the war and had a bigger effect on the world demographically.
Everyone who survied that war survived the Spanish Flu. It killed, by far, more of those fighting the war than the weapons did.
timely comment.
@@DugrozReports Well, at least we don't have the world war...
@@fuzzydunlop7928 OR DO WE . . . !!! :)
It seems that we are going to be lost again...
Very nice 👌
I remember reading the great gatsby in my English class when I was a junior
Even though they were living in one of the darkest times in the history, they were resilient as the sun rises up
Interesting but James Joyce wasn't American. He was Irish.
Hi your video was very helpful and informative and gave a good idea what the lost generation is but can you tell me we're you cited your sources?
Thank you Mr Beat this period of history after world war 1. is all ways skipped over this area of art, culture and literature than defined a modren world
It was like a reset of some sort
You know, I saw a video on Netflix showing and playing recordings of World War I (aka 100+ year old) mentalities. And they were so different, as far as seemingly having zero pain. A toughness type of mentality that is incomparable to anyone of the modern day era, or even of World War II, and that was everyone (you couldn't even find one that compares to a random everyone of that generation). Our mentalities are getting weaker and weaker as each generation goes by. It's quite incredible. But if you understand their brains, you'd almost have to say they were the "greatest generation." Check it out. They didn't give an eff. Zero fear, and that includes before, during, and after. It was just like, that's just what you do, no bigs at all.
anonymous yeah, it’s a shame ppl are complaining about everything nowadays. guess some people haven’t heard about this generation
They were traumatized, depressed, cynical and numb. That's not actually something to aspire to.
Oh yeah, all us young folk really need to do is go ship ourselves off into actual hell, that'll fix us and definitely not make anything worse. Get outta here.
If I had one million dollars to pay you, I would! 😂 great video!
+The Course of History haha, ditto!
Do a story time on world war 2
Excellent suggestion!
tank you
Wow this all sounds a lot like today, shows you history repeats
so its been 5 days sence iv made that suggestion are you making the video
lol these things takes time. I've added it to the list, but it could be months before I get to it.
ok sorry and i rellay don't like that word lol
Your a g mr beat
I've always fantasized about the "Lost Generation" and have often thought I should've been apart of them; and wished I were.
Why would you want that?
@@dontestevens4831
Well, because hard work would still pay off and if I wouldn't have died in WW1 or been apart of it I would have been very successful. Owned lots of land, etc... Of course, then there's the whole romanticized part of the era I could write a book about.
@@geico1975yeah sure, you don't know that. You would have more than likely been a casualty and if you were lucky not to be then you more than likely would have PTSD. If you didn't die you'd have the honor of witnessing your friends die in battle. Just to return home to an America going through a depression. And you would've been young, not knowing anything about the world except for the war. Just for part to to come around later. Do you really think it'd be that easy to become an author? You sound like an ignorant jerk who doesn't understand the suffering that went on during that period
@@dontestevens4831
Well, you asked and I gave you an answer.
@@geico1975 it's a stupid one, granted I did ask but still
All American maybe but James Joyce was Irish
Bite
“One upon a time there was a city called Paris”??? It still exists
Sadly.
so you mean your ganna make it
Yes, but it will be awhile :)
ok got ya
Once upon a time, there was a city named Paris, friends??
France...
:) they supplied the worlds with new worlds in their books
Never knew Joyce was American....
Like if you are in lele cours in France
Loomers?
They sound like millennials.
"Lost Generation" is simply a moniker that stuck. It really doesn't have any meaning.
It has plenty of meaning that's why it stuck, a generation that saw the horrors of world war 1 returned home to a materialistic and racist society so they left
Also they felt extreme guilt for being the ones to survive when so many died , the first people to attempt to climb Everest in 1922 were from this generation and George Mallory simply stated when asked why he tried to climb Everest "because it's there"
They basically lived as freely as possible Turing their back on tradition, so the lost generation gives plenty of meaning
@@Ryano966 Agreed. PTSD was what they suffered, although there was no name for it at the time.