Talk:Lost Generation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Contents |
[edit] Source?
Need a source on Stein originating the term: I have seen that disputed elsewhere and I will try to come up with a source on the possible other originator. 209.149.235.241 17:17, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Didn't Stein hear her auto mechanic coin the words "lost generation"? Is this in dispute?
Stein isn't a member of the "Lost Generation" this statement was removed. She was of the Missionary Generation, being born in the 1870's, also she evoked the Missionary Generation. Egil
[edit] Eisenhower?
I think it's absolutely wrong to refer to people such as Eisenhower, Truman, and Patton as being members of the Lost Generation. That term cleared referred to the people who hung out in Paris in the 20s, not to just anyone who happened to be born at a particular era. You can convince me that I'm wrong about this, but you're going to have to come up with some real references supporting this point of view in order to do so.Hayford Peirce 18:00, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- Agreed 68.22.252.165 02:33, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- Agreed, also. I've never seen the non-Paris set referred this way in music and art criticism. --Myke Cuthbert 04:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
Strongly agree! I turned here just to register my objection. Any schoolkid who trusts this page and refers to Ike as a member of the Lost Generation will be marked down. Doesn't the attempt to extend the literary term into a general term violate the ban against original research/theories in an article? G Leonard, Prof. of Humanities, SFSU August 2006
Source: Generations (book). -- Stbalbach 06:25, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
- Then perhaps we should split this off into two different pages (or at the very least a strong separation on this page), because it seems to me to make little sense to discuss Eisenhower on the same page as Stein et al. to people coming here to look for information on a literary movement. (Just for comparison, EB begins, "in general, the post-World War I generation, but specifically a group of U.S. writers who came of age during the war and established their literary reputations in the 1920s." The remainder of the article is only a discussion of the literary group). Maybe this split could be a compromise. --Myke Cuthbert 15:18, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
-
- There is no reason to fork just discuss the different permutations and meanings of the phrase. -- Stbalbach 21:38, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Every generation has its outsiders, so to speak. Harry S. Truman seemed more like a part of the Missionary Generation, not sharing in the antics of some of the more characteristic Lost. But he was not accepted as part of the Missionary Generation. The lionization that applied to FDR sis not accrue to him. Think of the slogan "To err is Truman". He had little formal education in contrast to other contemporary leaders.
Truman's style was not Missionary-like even if he shared most of their virtues, cultural and moral. He was just too pragmatic (a Lost virtue) to be a Missionary. But more significantly, Truman's contemporaries in Europe and Japan were the fascists -- Tojo was born in the same year and Mussolini was a year older; the vile Julius Streicher was a year younger and the infamous traitor Vidkun Quisling was three years younger.
To call the American generation "Lost" is far nicer than what one can say of Europeans, where many of the contemporaries of Truman, Patton, and Eisenhower were fascists and nazis. In the Soviet Union, many of their contemporaries were the most prominent victims of Stalinism (Kirov, Radek, Kamenev, Bukharin) and some of the most vicious enforcers (Vyshinsly, Beria).
Truman's Lost Generation well fit the role of typical Reactive/Nomad generations in Anglo-American history as second-tier administrators, field commanders, and entrepreneurs. Truman's style of government is more typical of that of John Adams, 2nd President of the United States, and his sort of government was definitely post-Crisis. --66.231.41.57 12:31, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The Generation of 1914?
Is the term "Generation of 1914" really the most used term in Europe? Maybe so in Germany perhaps? But I am British and have always heard the term Lost Generation. Any sources for the 1914 term? Amelia Hunt 02:54, Jan 13, 2005 (UTC)
The Vietnamese people during these times coined the term "Choi Lung" which means "Play Along" what???
[edit] Celebrities
I deleted the designations "immigrant" and "emmigrant" that followed several of the names in this section for three reasons. First, it is unclear where the authors were immigrating to and emmigrating from. Second, since the majority of the lost generation became ex-patriots living in France, mightn't one regard them all as immigrants to France? Third, if it were made clear that the distinction was whether the literary figures were born American or had immigrated to the States, then I would question the relevance: why should it matter whether they were born American or not? Joel Bastedo 21:48, 2 April 2006 (UTC)
[edit] "Génération au feu" ?
"In France, the country in which many expatriates settled, they are called the Génération au Feu, the Generation of Fire."
-> I've never encountered this term in French, and a search through google only gives results for wikipedia articles in several (non-French) languages. The right term is "génération de feu", which refers to the generation of Frenchmen who survived WWI with physical and psychological traumatisms and which considered that it should be the "der des der" (last of the last). --87.65.200.15 16:17, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
[edit] American Generations table Misleading and Erroneous
I don't want to get involved now in fixing it, but the table of American Generations is clearly wrong, with the year ranges out of synch with their names. Glaringly, this article's entry, Lost Generation, shows up as 1883-1900. They are all out of synch at that point and forward, yet the number of names and age ranges matches up. Also, the year range 1886-1908 is out of sequence, falling before 1860-1882, instead of after it. If noone does anything with this, I might get a round tuit :) but it would be better if someone more familiar with the topic cleaned it up. --Eliyahu S 10:38, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
On following through to the List_of_generations page, I see that the year ranges refer to birth year rather than years of the events. On that page it is noted, but on this (the Lost Generations) page there is no way of knowing that. I don't know if it would be better to make a note of that, if that is a Wikipedia / historical convention, or to list years in which the events named occurred, as someone like me, unaware of the convention, immediately assumed them to be. In either case, there is a sequencing problem, as noted before. --Eliyahu S 10:49, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Copland and complexity of etymology
If Aaron Copland is included, the Virgil Thomson MUST be, too. He collaborated w/Stein and lived in France MUCH longer than Copland. And perhaps the whole of American musicians who studied in France.
Perhaps "The Lost Generation" should state the term's etymology as purely literary/in France/etc. but then state that it has since grown to include x,y, and z. This would make the purists and the post-mods happy with the meaning of the term. Clearly today it is used in such a way that it is a broader term than when originally coined.
Fine -- so add Virgil Thompson.
I included Aaron Copland as a prime example of someone who fits the pattern characteristic of Reactives of being daring (at least culturally!) early adulthood who mellow out in middle-age, and then become reclusive late in life. Contrast the Czech composer Leos Janacek, the diametric opposite.
--Paul from Michigan 23:01, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Edited the "Traits" section, for several reasons.
Removed: "arguably the first distinctly American artform." for two reasons,
1) There is no citation for the statement, and given that Jazz began hundreds of years into United States history it seems at first blush to be a provably false statement.
2) The link arguably undercut the purpose of the prose.
Changed to: "This generation was also involved with the first flowering of jazz music." This probably needs some work, bu tI'm not the person to do it.
This article seems problematic in general because it (like others in this category) attempts to ascribe characteristics to an entire generation of people based on the historical facts surrounding relatively few (and largely elite) individuals.
illovich 00:04, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
- This is based on the books Generations (book) and The Fourth Turning. I agree with some of the statements above on this page, that it is problematic, having the theory from these books dominate the articles on the various generations to such a degree. I've read The Fourth Turning myself and find it a fascinating theory, but there certainly is no scientific consensus that the theory is true. --Xyzzyplugh 19:07, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
