Geist and Zeitgeist: The Spirit in an Unspiritual Age - Hardcover

Broch, Hermann; Hargraves, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 158243168X ISBN 13: 9781582431680

Publisher: Catapult, 2003

Synopsis

Hermann Broch achieved international recognition for his brilliant use of innovative literary techniques to present the entire range of human experience, from the biological to the metaphysical. Concerned with the problem of ethical responsibility in a world with no unified system of values, he turned to literature as the appropriate form for considering those human problems not subject to rational treatment.

Late in life, Broch began questioning his artistic pursuits and turned from literature to devote himself to political theory. While he is well known and highly regarded throughout the world as a novelist, he was equally accomplished as an essayist. These six essays give us a fascinating glimpse into the mind of one of the twentieth century's most original thinkers.

About this title

About the Author:

Hermann Broch (1886-1951) was born in Vienna. He studied philosophy and mathematics, was active in labor relations, and wrote sociological and literary essays. At the time of his death he was researching mass psychology at Yale University.

From Publishers Weekly:

Though best known to American scholars as an unsung master novelist (The Death of Virgil; The Sleepwalkers), Austrian-born Broch (1886-1951) also penned challenging, provocative essays. The six collected here, among the few to have been translated into English, represent the dominant themes in Broch's writings. For most of his life, the author concerned himself with the role of art in an era he felt was undergoing a "dissolution of values." Indeed, all but one of these essays are based on Broch's belief that Western culture had lost its unifying value-set, and was thus floundering, ethically and esthetically, as it waited for the emergence of another prevalent set of values. Not surprisingly, he champions art that represents universal human experience; he repeatedly cites James Joyce's Ulysses as being uniquely of its time, even as it revived the principles of Homeric myth. In "Evil in the Value-System of Art," Broch argues that kitsch, because it is imitative rather than original and seeks beauty rather than truth, is "the evil in art." Broch's ideas and ideals are nothing if not rarified, but the rigor of his thought and the strength of his belief in art's ability-duty, even-to restore a culture's universal mythic knowledge is striking.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Catapult
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 158243168X
• ISBN 13: 9781582431680
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240