ANGST

:''Dread redirects here. For the style of hair, see Dreadlocks. For the role-playing game, see .

'''Angst''' is the German word for fear or anxiety. It is used in English to describe an intense feeling of emotional strife. In German, it is the fear of possible suffering and a behavior situated from uncertainty and strain which is caused by pain, loss, and death, and the term ''Angst'' distinguishes itself from the word ''Furcht'' (German for "fear") in that it is ''Furcht'' that usually refers to a material threat (arranged fear), while Angst on the other hand is usually a nondirectional emotion. It is usually, but not always, associated with 'teenage angst', or confusion and anxiety within the self.
In other languages having the meaning of the Latin word ''anxietas'' and ''pavor'', the derived words however differ in meaning e.g as in the French ''anxieté'' and ''peur''.
The word ''Angst'' has existed itself since the 8th century, coming from the base-Indoeuropean ''
★ anghu-'', "restraint" from which Old High German ''angust'' develops. It is pre-cognate with the Latin ''angustia'', "tensity, tightness" and ''angor'', "choking, clogging"; compare to the Greek "άγχος" (ankhos): stress.
A different but related meaning is attributed to Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855). In ''The Concept of Anxiety'', Kierkegaard used the word ''Angest'' (Danish, meaning "dread") to describe a profound and deep-seated spiritual condition of insecurity and despair in the free human being. Where the animal is a slave to its instincts but always confident in its own actions, Kierkegaard believed that the freedom given to mankind leaves the human in a constant fear of failing its responsibilities to God. Kierkegaard's concept of angst is considered to be an important stepping stone for 20th-century existentialism. While Kierkegaard's feeling of angst is fear of actual responsibility to God, in modern use, angst is broadened to include general frustration associated with the conflict between actual responsibilities to self, one's principles, and others (possibly including God). Still, the angst in alternative music may be more accessible to more audiences than existentialism. The term "angst" is now widely used as a theme in many great modern writers. Often, as in the Catcher in the Rye the expression is used as a common adolescent experience of malaise; in this sense it has become one of the most central themes used in the fiction of modern novelists like Don DeLillo^[1], David Foster Wallace and others.

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Angst in contemporary music

References

See also

Angst in contemporary music

Angst, in contemporary connotative use, most often describes the intense frustration and other related emotions of teenagers and the mood of the music and art with which they identify. Punk rock, grunge, nu metal, emo and virtually any alternative rock dramatically combining elements of discord, melancholy and excitement may be said to express angst.
Angst was probably first discussed in relation to contemporary music in the mid to late 1980s and 1990s. In the 1980s "teen angst" was expressed in music to a certain extent in the rise of punk, post punk, and Alternative music with which it is currently more associated, and was probably first used in reference to, the grunge movement and the band Nirvana. Nirvana themselves seem to have been aware of this, as evidenced by the first line of "Serve the Servants" in which Kurt Cobain describes the success of writing songs dealing with the subject (''Teenage angst has paid off well | Now I'm bored and old...''). Although KMFDM, a German industrial band, released an album entitled Angst at the same time. The band Placebo also has a song "Teenage Angst" which deals with many of these same themes. One of the many examples of describing the feeling of teen angst in electric music is M83's "Teen Angst" (from the 2005 album ''Before The Dawn Heals Us''). The band From First to Last released an album titled ''Dear Diary, My Teen Angst Has A Body Count'' (a quote from the film "Heathers") in June 2004. The band NOFX also has a song titled "All Outta Angst" which mocks the teenage need for angst and condemns those who use it as an excuse for their behaviour. See a band just named angst too.

References

1. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/10/movies/10game.html?ex=1299646800&en=280db0598f7c692d&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

See also

★ Byronic hero, an archetypal "rebel" in literature, described by Byron in 1812, with attitudes similar to those with angst in modernity.

★ Fear

★ Guilt

★ Panic

★ Phobia

★ Shame

★ Weltschmerz