Zeitgeist

From PenguinWiki

A German term meaning "spirit of the time." It refers to the moral and intellectual trends of a given era. Examples of zeitgeist include the preoccupation with the more morbid aspects of dying and death in some Jacobean literature, especially in the works of dramatists Cyril Tourneur and John Webster, and the decadence of the French Symbolists. www.galegroup.com/free_resources/glossary/glossary_tz.htm