Studia Islandica - 01.06.1986, Page 292

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characters entails their resurrection; they transcend their fate, victorious in
defeat - Christ-like figures who triumph by sacrificing their own lives.
5
The optimistic belief in the human potential, the belief that all conflicts
could be resolved, waned as the 19th century drew to its close. Then,
around 1900, a triple cultural break with the past occurred - a transforma-
tion which may be defined as follows:
1) The metaphysical break: Many thinkers started to question not only the
guidance of organized religion, but also that of Christian values. Human ex-
istence, they felt, had been cut loose from its once-solid anchor in the uni-
verse and left adrift in uncharted waters - a thought inviting further reason-
ing: If God was out of the picture, if what had been sacred had changed into
words emptied of their meaning, the human being was left abandoned,
without moorings, and death was the only certainty. Reality had turned its
back on man, gathered all meaning into itself, shut itself in; with that, faith
and understanding of life parted company. Those who refused to distance
themselves from the problem, and were true to their intellect - knowing
that human dignity consists in recognizing and respecting one’s limits -
faced a dilemma. Reason offered no answer to their most vital question,
held out nothing which made life worth living. Intellect and emotion had
joined battle.
Writers were divided in their reaction to the problem. Some leaned to-
ward amoral hedonism, others toward existential pessimism. Some tried to
seize happiness from the fleeting moment, wanted to enjoy life here and
now, enjoy for the sake of enjoyment. While their emphasis on the free in-
stinct was revolutionary. it stemmed more from fear of death then from be-
lief in life; it was no longer possible to justify Iife, so the only recourse was
to live and forget about everything else. Some authors tried to join the ex-
ternal world by expanding their physical space; for them, pleasure-seeking
was the watchword. Unable to cope in that way, others wrestled with the ex-
istential question in ethical seriousness; their works portray characters who
drift along in a search ending in front of a locked door - ending in their de-
struction; such is the human condition, these writers say, in the absence of
a purpose.
2) The social break: Numerous authors totally rejected the centuries-old
ethical system - a point of view giving rise to a new definition ofman in their
works: The realistic literature portrays man as subject to conditions rooted
in history; society may be unjust and deadening, but it, nevertheless, means
something to the individual; he betongs to it as a member of a family,
group, class, nation. In the modern literature, however, man has lost that
sense of belonging; he is isolated — no longer a social being, but an indivi-
dual one. The ill-treated underling has been replaced as a central figure by