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The Problem of Age-Groups: A Statistical Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Detlev W. Schumann
Detlev W. Schumann*
Affiliation:
Brown University
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Extract

In a previous article I criticized at some length the various approaches to the problem of cultural generations or age-groups in German thought from Goethe to the present day. As pointed out there, it was Wilhelm Dilthey who really developed this concept as a methodological principle. In this connection he once recommended the application of statistical methods to literary research. In spite of the great amount that has otherwise, particularly in recent years, been written on the subject in Germany, this suggestion of Dilthey's has never been followed up. To be sure, some authors, e.g. Hans von Müller, have given us long and laboriously compiled catalogues of authors listed according to their birth dates and on that basis periodized in age-groups. But neither the selection of names nor the dividing lines between the groups are based on any objective principle. Müller imposes a self-devised system of periodization on a self-selected list of representative writers. Nor is such subjectivity limited to this particular case. The entire methodological idea of age-groups based on birth dates has therefore widely fallen into disrepute as an unsound subjective fantasy. In my above-mentioned paper I expressed the hope of enhancing the validity of the age-group principle by trying to establish a truly objective basis. This problem had first presented itself to me in connection with studies in very recent German “Geistesgeschichte” and had led me to a statistical approach even before I was aware of Dilthey's demand for such.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , June 1937 , pp. 596 - 608
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1937

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References

page 596 note 1 “The Problem of Cultural Age-Groups in German Thought—A Critical Review,” PMLA, li, 1180–1207.

page 596 note 2 Das Erlebnis und die Dichtung (Novalis essay). Also in the essay “Über das Studium der Geschichte der Wissenschaften vom Menschen, der Gesellschaft und dem Staat,” Gesammelte Schriften, v, (Leipzig and Berlin, 1924).

page 596 note 3 Zehn Generationen deutscher Dichter und Denker (Berlin, 1928).

page 596 note 4 “Die literarischen Generationen,” in Ermatinger's Philosophie der Literaturwissenschaft (Berlin, 1930), pp. 130 ff.

page 596 note 5 For this and the following pages cf. my article “Expressionism and Post-Expressionism in German Lyrics.” Germanic Review, ix (1934), 54–66; 115–129.

page 596 note 6 Regarding the technique of statistical presentation in the graphs, the following should be said. Statisticians distinguish between “fluctuations” and “trends.” The latter, i.e. the ups and downs from one individual value to another, are likely to contain a great element of chance and cannot be considered particularly significant. In order to proceed from the fluctuation to the trend, we substitute for each value the average of a group whose center it is. This article works with three-year groups. In Table iii, I have given both fluctuations and trends; the former are represented by the light line, the latter by the heavy one. To give a concrete example: for the original value for the year 1885 we substitute the average value for 1884, 1885, 1886; for 1886, the average for 1885, 1886, 1887, etc. In the individual case this presentation of course gives us fictitious values, but it should be obvious that it eliminates chance variations to a considerable degree and leaves a picture of increased significance. Of course, we could also take five-year instead of three-year averages, but then clearcut climaxes and anti-climaxes might recede too much.

page 596 note 7 Title-page without date; I base the figure on a remark on p. 29. On no account can the selection have appeared before 1924.

page 596 note 8 Obviously this “center of gravity” is not necessarily identical with the year of the absolute maximum.

page 596 note 9 Cf. note 5 above.

page 596 note 10 Erich Ebermayer, e.g., in his essay “Zur menschlichen und geistigen Situation der jungen Schriftstellergeneration,” (Zeitschrift für Deutschkunde, 1931) turns, as a conscious spokesman of the group centering about 1900, with bitterness and a quite typical generational resentment against the following group, i.e. roughly those born after 1905.

page 596 note 11 I used the fifth edition (Stuttgart, 1931).

page 596 note 12 New edition of Vol. i (Leipzig, 1928); Vol. ii (Leipzig, 1926).

page 596 note 13 Breslau, 1927.

page 596 note 14 In the case of Naumann and Stammler the figures are based on the indices; in the case of Soergel the table of contents was used, since the index, on account of the great comprehensiveness of the book, would have yielded too high figures to be well comparable to those of the other two.

page 596 note 15 I give a few examples: 1859: Bleibtreu; 1860: Clara Viebig; 1861: Wilhelm v. Polenz; 1862: K. Alberti, H. Conradi, G. Hauptmann, Schlaf, Schnitzler; 1863: Dehmel, Frenssen, A. Holz; 1864: 0. E. Hartleben, K. Henckell, W. Arent (also Wedekind!); 1865: O. J. Bierbaum, Max Halbe.

page 596 note 16 A few selected dates: 1868: Stefan George, Wilhelm Schäfer; 1871: Morgenstern; 1872: Mombert, Klages; 1873: Lulu von Strauss und Torney, Wassermann, Otto zur Linde; 1874: Hofmannsthal, Schaukal, Wilhelm von Scholz; 1875: Thomas Mann, Hans Grimm, Rilke (an extremely mixed group); 1876: Th. Däubler (already claimed by expressionism), H. Eulenberg, E. Hardt, Else Lasker-Schüler, W. Schmidtbonn; 1877: R. Borchardt, Karl Röttger, Hermann Hesse; 1878: Carossa, Döblin, Georg Kaiser (expressionist!), Kolbenheyer; 1879: Agnes Miegel.

page 596 note 17 1881: Kneip, Josef Winckler, Paul Zech; 1882: Leonhard Frank, Ernst Lissauer, L. Rubiner; 1883: Schickele, Stadler; 1885: Fritz von Unruh; 1886: Ehrenstein, Bröger, Benn; 1887: Reinhold Goering, Georg Heym, Trakl; 1888: Wolfenstein; 1889: Kornfeld, Lersch; 1890: Hasenclever, Edschmid, Werfel; 1891: J. R. Becher, Kurt Heynicke, Klabund; 1892: Adolf von Hatzfeld, R. J. Sorge.

page 596 note 18 8th ed. (Leipzig and Berlin, 1931).

page 596 note 19 New York, London, Edinburgh, 1931.

page 596 note 20 Wildpark-Potsdam, 1927–30.

page 596 note 21 Berlin, 1930–31.

page 596 note 22 4th ed. (1918), new impression (Leipzig, 1930).

page 596 note 23 This work was used as revised and continued by Walzel (4th ed., Berlin, 1928); but the latter's manner of treatment here differs widely from that applied by him in No. 3.

page 596 note 24 The latter, of course, by no means a pure romanticist.

page 596 note 25 Cf. also: 1802: Lenau, Ruge, Wienbarg; 1804: L. Feuerbach; 1806: Laube. Outsiders are Mörike (1804) and Stifter (1805).