Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age

What is the Gesamtkunstwerk or total work of art and how does it play out in the art and war of the modern period?

Describe the German and British views of modernity. According to Eksteins, why were these views in conflict with one another?

Discuss the role of heroes and heroism in Eksteins’s work. With reference to the text in addition to your own opinion, do you think that the Great War killed heroism and the desire for heroes?

Describe the phenomena of shell shock and postwar nostalgia for trench-life amongst soldiers. In Eksteins’s view, what were the factors behind each phenomenon?

Compare and contrast Eksteins’s portrayals of the cities of Paris and Berlin. What symbolism was present in each city?

Discuss the significance of movement in Eksteins’s analysis of art, war, and postwar recovery.

How did survivors remember and commemorate the war? Were there differences in the responses of people from different nations and if so, why? If not, why not?

How does Eksteins define “bourgeois morality” and how did artists and warmongers of the modern period define themselves against it?