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halls, theaters, museums, and in the literary clubs of the gymnas ia,
creating by 1890 an aesthetica ll y cultiva ted, well-to-do middl e class
whose personal refin ement, thea tri cal and musi cal culture, and psy–
cho logical sensitivity were no t, as elsewhere in Europe, a protes t
against bourgeois civilization , but rath er an expression o f that civiliza–
tion. But the aestheticism lacked bo th ethical or social ideals: it was a
mode o f life.
The next generation of express ioni sts, represented by Oskar
Kokoschka and Arno ld Schoenberg, procl aimed disturbing psycho log–
ical truths whi ch the first genera ti on h ad onl y alluded to in all ego ry.
T he shock o f their expli cit work p roduced rej ection , which in turn
reinforced their ali enation . This a liena tion became the ground on
whi ch they expl ored new artisti c and social rea lms. Schorske, in g iving
us
Fin -de-Siecle Vienna,
has es ta bli shed a new standard of social
breadth in intell ectual history and added a novel and welcome cultural
dimension
to
political history.
PETER LOEWENBERG
LIONEL TRILLING
LIONEL TRILLING: CRITICISM AND POLITICS. By
William
M. Chace.
Stanford University Press. $12.95.
Willi am Chace's study of Li onel Trilling is the work o f a
young man who is no t Jewish and no t from ew York and who "was
born exac tl y one year before th e German in vas ion of Pol and ." For Mr.
Chace Sta lin " is . . . a n ame, no t an experi ence," and he scrupulo usly
warns us th a t he does "not know a t first hand many as pects o f the
modern experi ence o f ideolog ical conflict. " My own perspective is
precise ly the oppos ite. I am Jewi sh and from New York. Both World
War II and Stalin were more th an names for me, they were experi ences.
Despite the difference in perspective, I find Chace's po rtrait o f Trill–
ing's mind bo th recogniza ble and congeni al. Ch ace has none of the
sixties rage aga inst the weakness o f th e liberal imagina tion , nor is th ere
