The early 19th-century Danish philosopher, Kierkegaard, insisted that ours is not a world of tendencies and ideas, but of men, each of whom is a mystery both in and to himself. Hence Kierkegaard is thought of as the first existentialist. For him the most important thing in life was man s relationship to God. Reason could not prove either God s existence or his goodness. Faith was a leap in the dark to which men were driven by awe and dread and anxiety.
History is in a sense irrelevant.
And this is a heavy burden. The reaction of the post-WWI world was to suspect too easily all manifestations of authority. The twenties was the era of revolt against signs of the assertive will. The temper of the age was anti-heroic. There is an increasing tendency, in the inter-war years, for the hero in novels to be a person to whom things happen, rather than someone who to any extent imposes his will on life.