WordWealth: zeitgeist

zeit·geist , n. German.

Usage: often capitalized

Note carefully the pronunciation of this word

There are many other writers who are neglected because their world view does not chime in with the zeitgeist. One National Theatre director told me he would not stage any plays by Somerset Maugham because his plays were snobbish. They are, but he was an important and successful British playwright, and I think audiences must be trusted to view his work in the context of the era in which they were written. —— David Lister, 'No One is Safe from Political Correctness - Even Lou Reed'; Art shouldn't be censored because of a fashion, even by the work's creator; Independent; March 01, 2003

They are the five books that most accurately sum up the essence of life in England today. Or at least that's what the organisers of a nationwide survey to find the country's ultimate "zeitgeist" read would have us believe. --A dystopian vision of a world of mind control and doublespeak penned in 1948 and a satire about a writer who aspires to be an axe murderer are among titles shortlisted in a poll of 6,000 book-buyers and library-goers. --Competing with them are an acerbic portrait of the quirks of English "culture", a comedy about race set in suburban north London, and an affectionate portrait of Britain by an American Anglophile. --Last night, the shortlist met a bemused reaction from Bill Bryson, whose Notes from a Small Island lines up alongside Zadie Smith's White Teeth, Jonathan Coe's What a Carve Up!, Jeremy Paxman's The English and ­ perhaps strangest of all ­ George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. --Describing the "nominations" as "bizarre", Mr Bryson said the poll, whose winner will be announced on World Book Day this Thursday, was more a reflection of the state of contemporary English writing than of England itself. So few authors now write books that "capture the moment", he said, that there is no longer any true zeitgeist writing for people to choose from.  —— Lucy Slater, 'Do They Really Mean Us? Authors Rail at Bizarre Choice of 'English' books'; Independent; March 01, 2003

Prozac works. And its effects go beyond the relief of depression. The Kramerian psychiatrist tells his patients that the drug will relieve their symptoms but adds, "I must warn you, you may feel more contented." Prozac appears to have had an effect on the zeitgeist, too: "We will come to discover," Kramer says, "that modern psychopharmacology has become, like Freud in his day, a whole climate of opinion under which we conduct our different lives." The thinly veiled indictment in his conclusion is that psychopharmacology, the study of drugs that influence mind and mood, is less than science, more like predicting the weather. In post-Prozac 1998 one wonders how the psychopharmacological climate will change with the advent of the latest, rather unlikely antidepressant: Hypericum perforatum, an herb known as St. John's wort ("wort" is Old English for "plant"). —— Edison Miyawaki, 'Listening to St. John's Wort'; Medical science meets the "natural Prozac"; The Atlantic; May 1998

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