The Lost Generation

Term used to describe the generation of writers active immediately after World War I

Gertrude Stein used the phrase in conversation with Ernest Hemingway, supposedly quoting a garage mechanic saying to her, "You are all a lost generation."

WHAT IS THE LOST GENERATION?

• The phrase signifies a disillusioned postwar generation characterized by lost values, lost belief in the idea of human progress, and a mood of futility and despair leading to hedonism.

WHAT IS THE LOST GENERATION?

• "Lost generation" usually refers specifically to the American expatriate writers associated with 1920s Paris, especially Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and to a lesser extent T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound.

Hedonism - pursuit of pleasure

ABSTRACT ART

THEMES

• Decadence
• Gender roles and impotence
• Idealized past

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eludes us then, but that's no matter- to-morrow we will run faster, stretch our arms farther... And one fine morning--
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." - DAISY