Nineteenth Century
The pessimistic element was available in Schopenhauer's philosophy and Matthew Arnold's cultural criticism. The tide of Whiggish optimism (exemplified by Macaulay) receded somewhat in the middle of the reign of Queen Victoria.
Classical culture, based on traditional classical scholarship in Latin and Greek literature, had itself been under attack externally for two generations or more by 1900, and had produced in Nietzsche, a model pessimistic thinker.
The increasing availability of information of world events during this period, led to increased despondence and consultants such as Marcus Buckle vocalised this as a general feeling of doom.
Read more about this topic: Cultural Pessimism
Famous quotes related to nineteenth century:
“The most revolutionary invention of the Nineteenth Century was the artificial sterilization of marriage.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead; in the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)
“Posterity—the forlorn child of nineteenth century optimism—grows ever harder to conceive.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Literature always anticipates life. It does not copy it, but moulds it to its purpose. The nineteenth century, as we know it, is largely an invention of Balzac.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“In the nineteenth century ... explanations of who and what women were focused primarily on reproductive events—marriage, children, the empty nest, menopause. You could explain what was happening in a woman’s life, it was believed, if you knew where she was in this reproductive cycle.”
—Grace Baruch (20th century)