AP Literary Term: Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist is defined as: the general cultural, intellectual, ethnical, or spiritual climate within a nation or even specific groups. The general ambiance, morals or sociocultural direction, and mood of a society/group/nation/etc. is also associated with zeitgeist.

An example of this would be America and its recession.  Our economic "climate" is not in a good place at the moment and is reflected through inflation, rising gas prices, etc. 

My first encounter with this word was in Mrs. Nylander’s class last year. It was such a funny word to me that it has always stuck with me. How can you not remember such an amusing sounding word? I pretend to have a German accent when I say it and that always puts some humor in my studies. Humorous strategies are the way I remember things.

To help better remember or understand this German term, I embedded a clip from our favorite search engine…Google! It ties in with what we have also been learning about research so click that play button!