the sad young men 课文和翻译

The Sad Young Men

Rod W. Horton and Herbert W. Edwards

1 No aspect of life in the Twenties has been more commented upon and

sensationally romanticized than the so-called Revolt of the Younger Generation. The curious questionings by the young: memories of the deliciously illicit thrill of the first fashionable experimentations in amour in the parked sedan on a country road; questions about the naughty, jazzy parties, the flask-toting "sheik," and the moral and stylistic vagaries of the "flapper" and the "drug-store cowboy." "Were young people really so wild?" present-day students ask their parents and teachers. "Was there really a Younger Generation problem?" The answers to such inquiries must of necessity be "yes" and "no"--"Yes" because the business of growing up is always accompanied by a Younger Generation Problem; "no" because what seemed so wild, irresponsible, and immoral in social behavior at the time can now be seen in perspective as being something considerably less sensational than the degenerauon of our jazzmad youth.

2 Actually, the revolt of the young people was a logical outcome of conditions in the age: First of all, it must be remembered that the rebellion was not confined to the Unit- ed States, but affected the entire Western world as a result of the aftermath of the first serious war in a century. Second, in the United States it was reluctantly realized by some- subconsciously if not openly -- that our country was no longer isolated in either prevent us from retreating behind the artificial walls of a provincial morality or the geographical protection of our two bordering oceans.

3 The rejection of Victorian gentility was, in any case, inevitable. The booming of American industry, with its gigantic, roaring factories, its corporate impersonality, and its largescale aggressiveness, no longer left any room for the code of polite behavior and well-bred morality fashioned in a quieter and less competitive age. War or no war, as the generations passed, it became increasingly difficult for our young people to accept

standards of behavior that bore no relationship to the bustling business medium in which they were expected to battle for success. The war acted merely as a catalytic agent in this breakdown of the Victorian social structure, and by precipitating our young people into a pattern of mass murder it released their inhibited violent energies which, after the shooting was over, were turned in both Europe and America to the destruction of an obsolescent nineteenth-century society.

4 Thus in a changing world youth was faced with the challenge of bringing our mores up to date. But at the same time it was tempted, in America at least, to escape its responsibilities and retreat behind an air of naughty alcoholic sophistication and a pose pleasures and momentary novelties , the hectic air of gaiety, the experimentation in escape made possible by a general prosperity and a post-war fatigue with politics,

economic restrictions, and international responsibilities. Prohibition afforded the young orgies and defiant manifestoes of the intellectuals crowding into Greenwich Village sprees, this one lasted until the money ran out, until the crash of the world economic sober up and face the problems of the new age.

5 The rebellion started with World War I. The prolonged stalemate of 1915 -- 1916, reluctance to declare our status as a belligerent were intolerable to many of our idealistic citizens, and with typical American adventurousness enhanced somewhat by the foreign flags. In the words of Joe Williams, in John Dos Passos' U. S. A., they "wanted to get into the fun before the whole thing turned belly up." For military service, in 1916-- 1917, was still a romantic occupation. The young men of college age in 1917 knew nothing of modern warfare. The strife of 1861 --1865 had popularly become, in motion picture and story, a magnolia-scented soap opera, while the one hundred-days' fracas with Spain in 1898 had dissolved into a one-sided victory at Manila and a

cinematic charge up San Juan Hill. Furthermore, there were enough high school

assembly orators proclaiming the character-forming force of the strenuous life to

convince more than enough otherwise sensible boys that service in the European conflict would be of great personal value, in addition to being idealistic and exciting.

Accordingly, they began to join the various armies in increasing numbers, the "intellectuals" in the ambulance corps, others in the infantry, merchant marine, or wherever else they could find a place. Those who were reluctant to serve in a foreign army talked excitedly about Preparedness, occasionally considered joining the National Guard, and rushed to enlist when we finally did enter the conflict. So tremendous was the storming of recruitment centers that harassed sergeants actually pleaded with

volunteers to "go home and wait for the draft," but since no self-respecting person

wanted to suffer the disgrace of being drafted, the enlistment craze continued unabated. 6 Naturally, the spirit of carnival and the enthusiasm for high military adventure were soon dissipated once the eager young men had received a good taste of twentieth- century warfare. To their lasting glory, they fought with distinction, but it was a much altered group of soldiers who returned from the battlefields in 1919. Especially was this true of the college contingent, whose idealism had led them to enlist early and who had generally seen a considerable amount of action. To them, it was bitter to return to a home town virtually untouched by the conflict, where citizens still talked with the naive was even more bitter to find that their old jobs had been taken by the stay-at-homes, that business was suffering a recessio …… 此处隐藏：15650字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……