Book contents
- The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism
- Series page
- The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- I Literary criticism as an institution
- II National developments in literary criticism
- III Critical movements and patterns of influence
- IV Later nineteenth-century developments: Realism, Naturalism, Symbolism and Decadence
- 14 Realism, Naturalism and Symbolism in France
- 15 Symbolism and Realism in Germany
- 16 Nineteenth-century British critics of Realism
- 17 American literary Realism
- 18 Decadence andfin de siècle
- 19 The avant-garde in early twentieth-century Europe
- V Some major critics of the period
- VI Genre criticism
- VII Literature and other disciplines
- Select bibliography and further reading
- Index
18 - Decadence andfin de siècle
from IV - Later nineteenth-century developments: Realism, Naturalism, Symbolism and Decadence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
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Book contents
- The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism
- Series page
- The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- I Literary criticism as an institution
- II National developments in literary criticism
- III Critical movements and patterns of influence
- IV Later nineteenth-century developments: Realism, Naturalism, Symbolism and Decadence
- 14 Realism, Naturalism and Symbolism in France
- 15 Symbolism and Realism in Germany
- 16 Nineteenth-century British critics of Realism
- 17 American literary Realism
- 18 Decadence andfin de siècle
- 19 The avant-garde in early twentieth-century Europe
- V Some major critics of the period
- VI Genre criticism
- VII Literature and other disciplines
- Select bibliography and further reading
- Index
Summary
The association of decadence with modern literature is the linking of art with high artifice and amorality, with its practitioners as dandies or degenerates, aesthetes whose sole aim was the cultivation of arcane beauty. In England the cult of Aestheticism, a cult which overlapped with certain aspects of French Decadence, derived largely from Walter Pater. A generation was saturated with Pater's writing, a writing suffused with a love of beauty but also aware of the fascination of corruption. In his autobiographical essay Meine Zeit, Thomas Mann looks back on the turn of the century, on the fin de siècle age of Aestheticism and Decadence, and finds much that is for ever fascinating, despite its rejection of that bourgeois age which had nurtured him and which he had always loved. The literature of the fin de siècle is a raree-show containing many fascinating exhibits, many exotic blooms, some poisonous, others tainted.
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- The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism , pp. 340 - 356Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013