Art and literature during the European fin-de-siècle period often manifested themes of degeneration and decay, both of bodies and civilizations, as well as illness, bizarre sexuality, and general morbidity. This collection explores these topics in relation to artists and writers as diverse as Oscar Wilde, August Strindberg, and Aubrey Beardsley.
Table of Content
Introduction: The Empire at the End of Decadence; Christopher Nissen and Marja Härmänmaa PART I: THE TWILIGHT WORLD: DECADENT VISIONS OF WORLD, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE 1. Thermal Degeneration: Thermodynamics and the Heat-Death of the Universe in Victorian Science, Philosophy, and Culture; Mason Tattersall 2. A Regenerative Decadence or a Decadent Regeneration: Challenges to Darwinian Determinism by French, Spanish, and Latin American Writers in the Fin-de-Siècle; Natalia Santamaría Laorden 3. Late Antiquity as an Expression of Decadence in the Poetry of Constantine P. Cavafy and Stefan George; Anastasia Antonopoulou 4. Decadence and Regeneration: Oscar Wilde’s Fairy Tales as a Tool for Social Change; Magali Fleurot PART II: THE SEDUCTION OF SICKNESS 5. Decadent Tropologies of Sickness; Pirjo Lyytikäinen 6. Consuming and Consumed: Woman as Habituée in Eugène Grasset’s Morphinomaniac; Abigail Susik 7. Decadence, Melancholia, and the Making of Modernism in the Salome Fairy Tales of Strindberg, Wilde, and Ibsen; Kyle Mox PART III: DECADENCE AND THE FEMININE 8. Mariia Iakunchikova and the Roots of Decadence in Late-Nineteenth Century Russian Modernism; Kristen M. Harkness 9. The Spectral Salome: Salomania and Fin-de-Siècle Sexology and Racial Theory; Johannes Burgers 10. ‘For the Strong-Minded Alone’: Evolution, Female Atavism, and Degeneration in Aubrey Beardsley’s Salomé; Gülru Çakmak PART IV: TWO STUDIES OF DEATH 11. Death at Sea: Symbolism and Charles Cottet’s Subjective Realism; Maura Coughlin 12. The Seduction of Thanatos: Gabriele D’Annunzio and the Decadent Death; Marja Härmänmaa
About the author
Anastasia Antonopoulou, University of Athens, Greece Johannes Burgers, Queensborough Community College, USA Gülru Çakmak, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA Maura Coughlin, Bryant University, USA Magali Fleurot, University of Bordeaux, France Kristen M. Harkness, University of Pittsburgh, USA Pirjo Lyytikäinen, University of Helsinki, Finland Kyle Mox, Texas A&M University, USA Natalia Santamaría Laorden, Ramapo College, USA Abigail Susik, Willamette University, USA Mason Tattersall, Oregon State University, USA
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