About the Education of Henry Adams
The Education of Henry Adams {1906} contrasts 19th century disunity with medieval unity. He argues, through a review of his own experience, that religion, art, and science have gone their separate ways, disorganizing the human sprit. The spiritual force once concentrated in the cult of the virgin has been transformed in modern times into the nonhuman force of motor energy, symbolized by the dynamo. The Education of Henry Adams, an autobiography in the third person, is written with detached skepticism and delicate irony. The style itself is ironical, for one of his main concerns in the work is to indict the formal educational system of his day for its failure to prepare an intelligent man for the chaos of modern life. |
