sentiments. It was not, necessarily, that they felt these sentiments more deeply than other peoples, but rather that they extended them to a greater range of objects. For this equality was responsible. It is easier to sympathize, Tocqueville noted, with those like (semblables). one’s self Democracy produces similarity. Therefore the democratic citizen will be quick to sympathy. “So there is no misery that he cannot easily imagine and whose extent is not revealed to him by a secret instinct. Whether it concerns strangers or enemies, imagination immediately puts him in their place. It mingles something personal in his pity, and makes him suffer as the body of his fellow man is torn apart.” The democratic toward pity must be explained, in part, by the readiness with penchant which democratic citizens come to depictions of suffering. Democracies prefer the real to the ideal. Their instinct is for the useful, not the beautiful. If Americans are the most prosaic of peoples it is because the aim of poetry is not to represent the true but to embellish it. Aristocracy about human nature. Achilles was a creation of aristocratic poetry. produced “beautiful illusions” Democratic poetry, however, takes as its subject No longer will poetry “humanity itself.” “live by which, it must be said, elevated, and palliated, violence in the aristocratic legends,” consciousness. Democratic poetry subsists on It will depict, then, in “human destinies.” democratic centuries, not only but also “unprecedented prosperity,” “incomprehensible miseries.” This combination of prosperity and misery was nowhere better captured than in the American postwar literature of the 1920s. Most incisive for the soldier was Hemingway’s portrayal of the wounded veteran Jake Barnes in American doughboys may The Sun Also Rises. well have thought themselves on an adventure, as David Kennedy has pointed out, but the war nonetheless constituted the last gasp of medieval romantic Consequently, World War “the tale.”
sentiments. It was not, necessarily, that they felt these sentiments more deeply than other peoples, but rather that they extended them to a greater range of objects. For this equality was responsible. It is easier to sympathize, Tocqueville noted, with those like one’s self (semblables). Democracy produces similarity. Therefore the democratic citizen will be quick to sympathy. “So there is no misery that he cannot easily imagine and whose extent is not revealed to him by a secret instinct. Whether it concerns strangers or enemies, imagination immediately puts him in their place. It mingles something personal in his pity, and makes him suffer as the body of his fellow man is torn apart.” The democratic penchant toward pity must be explained, in part, by the readiness with which democratic citizens come to depictions of suffering. Democracies prefer the real to the ideal. Their instinct is for the useful, not the beautiful. If Americans are the most prosaic of peoples it is because the aim of poetry is not to represent the true but to embellish it. Aristocracy produced “beautiful illusions” about human nature. Achilles was a creation of aristocratic poetry. Democratic poetry, however, takes as its subject “humanity itself.” No longer will poetry “live by legends,” which, it must be said, elevated, and palliated, violence in the aristocratic consciousness. Democratic poetry subsists on “human destinies.” It will depict, then, in democratic centuries, not only “unprecedented prosperity,” but also “incomprehensible miseries.” This combination of prosperity and misery was nowhere better captured than in the American postwar literature of the 1920s. Most incisive for the soldier was Hemingway’s portrayal of the wounded veteran Jake Barnes in The Sun Also Rises. American doughboys may well have thought themselves on an adventure, as David Kennedy has pointed out, but the war nonetheless constituted the last gasp of “the medieval romantic tale.” Consequently, World War
Hamman%20WPSA%20paper.docx