Decadence, Degeneration, and the End Studies in the European Fin de Siècle

by Härmänmaa, Marja; Nissen, Christopher

• ISBN13: 9781137470881
• ISBN10: 1137470887
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-11-19
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

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. The studies range from the Mediterranean world to Scandinavia and Russia and on subjects as diverse as Oscar Wilde, August Strindberg, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Aubrey Beardsley, the Nordic Decadents, the perceived decline of Latin civilization, Salome in all of her outrageous incarnations, and the heat-death of the universe.

Author Biography

Marja Härmänmaa is Associate Professor of Italian at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She is a specialist in the Italian culture and literature of the late 19th and early 20th century. She has published extensively on Gabriele D'Annunzio, Italian Futurism, and F.T. Marinetti, including Un patriota che sfidò la decadenza. F.T. Marinetti e l'idea dell'uomo nuovo fascista (1929-1944).
 
Christopher Nissen is Professor of Italian at Northern Illinois University, USA. His publications emphasize medieval and early modern Italian prose fiction, including studies of the narrative theory of the novella, early modern manuscripts, Giovanni Boccaccio, Gentile Sermini, and Giulia Bigolina. He has also published articles on Gabriele D'Annunzio. His most recent book is Kissing the Wild Woman: Concepts of Art, Beauty, and the Italian Prose Romance in Giulia Bigolina's Urania.

Table of Contents

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