The lost generation: from Paris to New York, a journey of disillusionment

The lost generation and the roaring twenties

The Lost Generation is an expression referred to all the American expatriates, who wrote most of the masterpieces at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, during the so-called “Roaring Twenties”. These American writers criticized American life after the exposition to the European culture, and the illusion of richness, power and wealth that was spreading across the USA after the First World War.

Social issues hidden by wealth

The enthusiasm after the War and the increasing of richness were actually hiding social problems such as the abuses of alcohol and drugs, the loss of solid values during and because of the War, the feel of emptiness and confusion deriving from the radical changes of the new century. The Lost Generation’s writers rejected the provincialism and the puritan values of their country, but even the rhetoric of the European civilization.

Paris as a hub for disillusioned intellectuals

Most of the disillusioned intellectuals of the Lost Generation found their home and the center of their experimentation in the city of Paris. In fact, the reference point in their works was the metropolis, with its cosmopolitan village of the arts, innovation and progress, far from the provincialism typical of towns and small cities in the deep America.
After the Second World War the ideal cosmopolitan city became New York.