The Age of Atrocity Death in Modern Literature

280 Pages·1978·33.454 MB·English

by  Lawrence L. Langer

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THE AGE OF ATROCITY
DEATH IN MODERN LITERATURE
Lawrence L. Langer
“Western humanism has evolved from
the principle that the unexamined life is not
worth living. The future of that humanism
may depend on our acceptance and under-
standing of the corollary principle that the
unexamined death is not worth dying.’ So
writes Lawrence Langer, as he seeks to
formulate in these pages an aesthetic for
dealing with death in modern times, in the
age of atrocity. “Tlie sheer quantity of lives
wasted by atrocity has corrupted the re-
deeming power of tragic insight, which
once enabled the imagination to leap be-
yond physical death to the consolations
of a noble moral or spiritual destiny,” he
continues. “The facts of recent history have
destroyed much of the sustenance that once
fed our conceptions of human dignity.”
This book, exploring some of the impli-
cations of an age that has imposed on the
traditional idea of death the prospect of
atrocity, scrutinizes selected works by four
important writers as they respond to the
destruction in modern history: Thomas
Mann to World War I, Albert Camus to
World War II, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to
Soviet labor camps, Charlotte Delbo to
Nazi incarceration and extermination.
Through his literary discussion Langer
demonstrates that what is necessary, in
order to come to terms with the violence
and annihilation that have become condi-
tions of our civilization, is a fundamental
shift in the concept of being human. The
(continued on back flap)

The Age of Atrocity
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2017 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation
https://archive.org/details/ageofatrocitydeaOOIang
the LAWRENCE L LANGER
age
of
atrocity
Death in Modern Literature
Beacon Press: Boston
Copyright © 1978 by Lawrence L. Langer
Beacon Press books are published under the auspices
of the Unitarian Universalist Association
Published simultaneously in Canada by
Fitzhenry & Whiteside Ltd., Toronto
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
(hardcover) 987654321
Nelly Sachs: excerpted from Fahrt ins Staublose, ©Suhrkamp Verlag, Frank-
furt am Main, 1967; and from “Chorus of Clouds” from The Seeker and Other
Poems by Nelly Sachs, translated by Ruth and Matthew Mead. Copyri^t © 1970
by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Suhrkamp
Verlag and Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.
Thomas Mann: excerpts from The Magic Mountain, translated by H.T. Lowe-
Porter, copyright 1927 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.; copyright 1952 by Thomas
Mann. Reprinted with the permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Albert Camus: excerpts from The Plague, copyright 1948 by Stuart Gilbert;
and from Lyrical and Critical Essays, copyright 1968 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.,
©copyright 1967 by Hamish Hamilton, Ltd. and Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Reprinted
with the permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn: excerpts from Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn,
translated from the Russian by Nicholas Bethell and David Burg. English transla-
tion ©The Bodley Head Ltd., 1968, 1969. Front and back matter of American
edition © 1969 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. Reprinted with the permission
of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. and the Bodley Head Ltd.
Charlotte Delbo: excerpts from Une Connaissance Inutile, © 1970 by Les
Editions de Minuit. Reprinted with the permission of Les Editions de Minuit.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Langer, Lawrence L.
The age of atrocity.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Death in literature. 2. Atrocities in literature.
2. Literature, Modem—20th century—History and criticism.
1. Title.
PN56.D413 809’933’54 77-88335
ISBN 0-8070-6368-1
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