1. Vienna 1900
Reading Schorske

2. About Carl Schorske Born 1915, Bronx, NY
Parents worked in a bank for immigrants: small business loans, mortgages
His parents had spoken German at home, but switched to English with US entry into World War
BA: Columbia 1935
MA, PhD: Harvard 1941
Wartime service in Office of Strategic Services
Precursor of CIA. At war’s end was Chief of Political Intelligence for Western Europe
Taught at Wesleyan College, UC Berkley, and Princeton

3. Schorske Background
1981 Fin-de-siècle Vienna won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non- fiction
Collection of essays
Subtitle: Politics and Culture
To help readers understand “the large architectonic correlations between high culture and socio-political change”
Connections between the world of ideas and social reality

4. High Culture: Received view of Western culture, circa 1961
High culture aims to make meaning out of life
An unbroken tradition reaching back in England, France, Spain, Italy, the Low Countries, and Germany and Austria to the High Middle Ages
Diachronic strands:
in poetry, painting, sculpture, music. One could understand the development of creative ideas within each discipline by reference to the tradition
The Enlightenment proclaimed the values of self-determination, reason, and science
It was also possible to see strands in the history of public life and politics, culminating in greater individual self-determination and fairness.
Disruptions: the 20th Century challenged this world view

5. 20th Century Disruptions
For Schorske’s generation the greatest disruption of all was World War II
National Socialism
arising in the some cultural space that produced Mozart, Goethe, Schiller, Beethoven, Mach, Einstein, and many more
Then combining violent racism and aggressive invasion of most of Europe
Keep in mind that Schorske had seen much of this disruption first- hand.

6. Schorske’s context
How does the context of Schorske’s life and times guide our interpretation of some early quotations?
Schorske asserts that by the 1890’s the heroes of the middle class were “no longer political leaders, but actors, artists and critics” (p. 8)
“The educated bourgeoisie had appropriated the aesthetic sensuous sensibility, but in a secularized, distorted, and in a highly individuated form.” (p.10)
“To the Viennese bourgeoisie nothing was more important than the arts, especially literature, theater and music. In large part because of being effectively locked out of the exercise of political power.”
“The life of art became a substitute for the life of action.”