The Sad Young Men or the Lost generation

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The Sad Young Men or the Lost generation

They refer to the same group of people. The name was first created by F. Fitzgerald in his book All the Sad Young Men and second by Gertrude Stein. These names were applied to the disillusioned intellectuals and aesthetes of the years following the First World War, who rebelled against former ideals and values, but could replace only by despair or a cynical hedonism（享乐主义）. The remark of Gertrude Stein , You are all a lost generation , addressed to Hemingway, was used as a preface to the latter s novel, The Sun Also Rises, which brilliantly describes an expatriate group typical of the Lost generation ,(cf. Beat Generation and angry Young Men).

When the first World War broke out, many idealistic young Americans volunteered to take part in the “war to end wars and test their own bravery, before the U.S.A.

declared war in 1917. They discovered that modern warfare was not glorious or heroic. They saw the best youth of England and France being slaughtered and at the end, they saw their ideals for a better world being bargained away for power and profit by the world s leaders in the treaty of Versailles.

Disillusioned by the slogans of Patriotism and glory, disgusted by the new frivolous, greedy, heedless way of life in America, and alarmed by the low level of culture, many of these young Americans began to write. Some adopted a bohemian , unconventional style of living among other writers, artists and actors in a cheap section of New York City called Greenwich Village. Others left America and formed a community of writers and artists in Paris. Very few of the good writers took part in the typical middle class life of the American Twenties. They stood aside, as onlookers, and wrote about what they saw. They wrote from their experiences in the war, and their own observations, ignoring previous literary style. They tried to make Americans see themselves with fresh, new eyes. Surprisingly, their books were received enthusiastically by the public and were widely read.

The expatriates chose Paris as their place of exile because France had the kind of civilized, highly cultured, relaxed, tolerant society which they admired. Foreigners were treated hospitably there, without curiosity or stir, and allowed to pursue their own work without interference. Most of the serious American writers in Paris were very young. They came from the East or the Middle West of the U.S.A., and most of them had been shocked or wounded in the war.

After World War II appeared the Beat Generation in the United States. This term was applied to certain American artists and writers who were popular during the 1950s. Essentially anarchic, members of the beat generation rejected traditional and artistic forms. They sought immediate expression in multiple intense experiences and beatific illusion like that of some Eastern religions. In literature they adopted rhythms of simple American speech and of so-called progressive jazz. Among those associated with the movement were the novelists Jack Kerouac and Chandler Brossard and others, many of whom had worked in and around San Francisco. During the 1960s, “beat” idea and attitudes were absorbed by other cultural movements, and those who practiced the “beat” life style were called ”Hippies”.