Search

AbstractThis article analyzes Spanish and Portuguese intellectual and political discourse on Iberism between the fin de siècle and the postwar period, focusing on its multifaceted interactions with the concept of Latinity. The nineteenth century saw the development of different conceptualizations of Europe and the world, including utopian and/or imperialistic conglomerates of nations united by language, culture or race. This study examines Iberism and Latinity as two transnational projects that sparked public debate and influenced the shaping of the idea of Europe. The interactions between the two projects were complex and shifted over time, marked by moments of mutual reinforcement, contradiction and conflict. The intricate relations between Iberism and Latinity affected Spain and Portugal’s relation to other geopolitical blocks: Latin America, with which they maintained a link that fluctuated between brotherhood and (neo-)colonial nostalgia; and the Anglo-American and Germanic blocs, each maintaining their own imperialistic aspirations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aparece, en el siglo XIX, la figura del “soltero” (artista) como un gesto de resistencia ante el avance y la generalización de la vida burguesa y utilitaria que se impone en forma desmedida. À Rebours, de J.K. Huysmans, es la narración de un espíritu hastiado debido a dicha imposición. El capítulo seis de la novela recrea la figura del soltero en des Esseintes como un modo de vida de su pasado, que, a causa de la neurosis, se exacerba en un deseo de soledad y aislamiento hasta revelar un proceso de desintegración paulatina del personaje. Sostengo que, por causa de su composición estilística, esta novela desencadena hacia fin de siglo XIX un proceso declinatorio de desintegración de la figura decimonónica del soltero y crea una nueva figura, que es la del “solo”, por ello, concentraré esta lectura estético-hermenéutica en el capítulo mencionado.

This article analyzes how the French fascist and collaborationist author Pierre Drieu la Rochelle thought critically about the forms and the functions of the modern writer-prophet. In essays dedicated to the cases of D. H. Lawrence and Friedrich Nietzsche, as well as to his own ideological and literary trajectory in the interwar years, Drieu defined the true prophet as a writer of decadence, one compelled to narrate and embody the decline of the nation. By assuming this burden, the writer-prophet in turn becomes doomed to be misunderstood or ignored by his decadent contemporaries. This logic of prophecy's ultimate failure provides a key to understanding the political and literary vision of Drieu's autobiographical fascist bildungsroman Gilles (1939). Finally, this article considers how Drieu's linking of prophecy and literary posterity can be seen as anticipating his recent controversial inclusion in the prestigious Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Perífrasis. Revista de Literatura, Teoría y Crítica is the property of Universidad de los Andes and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Nietzsche's portrayal of Pyrrho is predominately contained in two of his notebooks from 1888, and they present a somewhat ambivalent attitude toward him. In this article, I offer an explanation for Nietzsche's variegated observations, and contend that his interest in Pyrrho is not really founded upon his radical scepticism as one might expect. Rather, it is Nietzsche's preoccupation with decadence in general – and its ancient Greek philosophical incarnations in particular – that drives his scrutiny of Pyrrho. I describe Nietzsche's evolving depiction of Pyrrho as one that ultimately develops into a critique, whereby Pyrrho is associated with a number of types of decadence, as well as exhibiting the characteristic traits of a decadent. I close by examining the cogency and soundness of Nietzsche's interpretation of Pyrrho as a specific exemplar of decadence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though fin de siècle decadence has seldom been recognized as a formative influence on John Fante's writing, the attitude toward modernity that Fante expresses in Ask the Dust is illegible without recourse to the decadent tradition. Tracing the novel's ideas about ethnicity, religion, and sexuality back to the fin de siècle , and reading Joris-Karl Huysmans's 1891 decadent novel Là-bas as its key intertext, we can see that Ask the Dust refashions decadence into an ambivalent survival strategy for transmuting alienation and suffering into a sense of personal consolation or power. Arturo Bandini, the novel's protagonist, poses as various decadent types, such as the dandy-flâneur, the diabolical apostate, and the impotent aesthete, as a means of transmuting the suffering he has endured as an ethnic other. At the same time, Fante himself employs decadence to critique the mutually implicative violences (ethnic, religious, sexual) that underlie judgments about social decay in the Depression-era United States. Fante's modernism ultimately amounts to an essaying of decadence—an asking of the dust for unsuspected consolations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on critically neglected works by prolific writer Netta Syrett (1865–1943), this article reveals her New Woman dialogue with aestheticism and decadence in her early short stories written for the iconic 1890s periodical The Yellow Book : primarily, 'A Correspondence' (1895) and 'Far Above Rubies' (1897). Together they trace Syrett's increasingly assertive voice and navigation of the period's seemingly competing but intersecting aesthetic, decadent and feminist movements. I argue that Syrett uses aesthetic and decadent discourses as strategic vehicles for the articulation of the evolving feminist ideas more fully expressed in her later pro-suffrage works. Specifically, her stories register her response to the male elitism and misogyny of aestheticism and decadence through a critical engagement with their tropes (exotic setting; aestheticized interior; femme fatale) and discourses (of mythology; statuary; floriography) in order to challenge the objectification and marginalization of women by masculinist culture using its own terms of reference. Syrett's stories are thus discursive spaces through which she articulates anxieties about women's place in, or exclusion from, aestheticism and decadence, asserting her role in these movements as both participant and critic. This article thus offers a more comprehensive understanding of the evolving discourses of, as well as the dialogues and debates enacted by, fin-de-siècle women's writing, shedding new light on the aesthetic and decadent movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proust only twice uses the expression, revealed by Sainte-Beuve, “the writer in his ivory tower”. These two occurrences come at the beginning and the end of his literary life, and provide an insight into the evolution of the writer’s relationship to writing, and the place he must occupy in the world and society. From the early 1890s, Proust mocked the image of the ivory tower as a decadent myth, and the status of the artist that derived from it. At the end of his life, in a passage intended for Le Temps retrouvé, Proust stresses the need for writers to deal with the times, and not to give up on confronting history, whether it be the Dreyfus affair or the Great War.

Copyright of International Journal of Arabic-English Studies (IJAES) is the property of International Journal of Arabic-English Studies (IJAES) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Scholars have used terms such as the “long nineteenth century” to convey the fact that the characteristics, principles, and artistic debates of the Victorian era did not suddenly vanish in 1900, but continued to inform British literature throughout the Edwardian era and into the start of the First World War. From work written by women, in particular, during the first decade of the twentieth century, it is obvious that one of the most significant developments of late-Victorian literature – i.e. the Aesthetic Movement – continued to enjoy an active life. This chapter uses a 1909 volume of prose poems, Shadow-shapes by Ella Erskine, to make that point, while demonstrating the important role played by Elkin Mathews, her publisher, in keeping Aestheticism before the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ictimaiyat is the property of Ictimaiyat and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Unbridled individualism and the neoliberalism that has been its biggest booster in the last four decades has propagated the conviction, only recently challenged, that hypertechnology is the pinnacle of humankind's aspirations and represents its future. This brief talk is a philosophical reflection about what it means to be human today, in an attempt to question the supposed infallibility of the technological project. The reflection draws on the cultural matrices of the original or autochthonous peoples of Mesoamerica, within the framework of the 19th-century philosopher Søren Kierkegaard's thinking, which prefigured existentialism, and the technological scenario envisioned by the European philosopher Günther Anders (1902-1992). With these pieces we attempt to cobble together a modest body of ideas to contribute to the debate among thinkers and researchers from a wide range of disciplines (including ethnologists, historians, sociologists and psychologists) about the hypertechnological future of humanity. Our reflection aims to shed light on modern society's blind, headlong rush into the technological project and the pressing need to recalibrate human existence at more natural scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Hudební Výchova is the property of Charles University Prague, Faculty of Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Intolerance, demonization and hate speech used to be an integral part of Franco-German relations in the 19th century. The paper is devoted to the analysis of the image of barbarians within the context of the confrontation between France and Germany in 1870s–1910s. Creation and transformation of political myths is viewed through the lens of cultural artefacts. The study is topical because it allows for the analysis of the universal development of cultural confrontation on a specific example. The prime goal of the article is to identify the patterns of mutual stigmatization and account for their seeming anomalies or exceptions to these patterns: the German simultaneously viewed as well-educated and barbarian; common origins of barbarian and classical antique cultures resulting in opposing identities, etc. The aims of the study include: 1) to systematize empirical sources; 2) to assess the impact of historical and cultural context on the formation of the conceptual images of barbaric and civilized; 3) to single out basic dichotomies of the barbaric vs civilized opposition. The study was based on various cultural texts of the period, ranging from speeches, essays, and memoirs to posters and monuments. Methods used included comparative, semiotic, and imagological approaches, corpus, discourse, and content analyses. French newspaper clichés are compared to the Europe-wide opinions about Prussian militarism. As it turns out, the German way of thinking about the heroes of the past contributed to political stigmatization of Germany. Another finding, based on French literature, is the unobvious correlation between decadent world perception and political turmoil in France. Modernist poetry, literature and journalism compared the fall of the French Empire to the collapse of the Roman Empire and thus contributed to the conceptualizing of the German as barbarians. At the same time German propaganda attempted to defend itself by finding barbarians on the east and ironically quoting French sources to speak about actual war crimes. The results of the study show that seemingly chaotic hate speech and confrontation are determined on the basis of the specific rules related to age-old non-political traditions and current political circumstances marking the dichotomy between oneself and the other, friend or foe.

The article examines the Estonian translations and reception of the Italian decadent writer, poet, and playwright Gabriele D’Annunzio during the period 1906–1915, encompassing a total of 13 published translations. These include a series of short stories featured in Estonian newspapers and magazines, along with two separate books: the novel Süütu (“The Innocent”, 1913) and a collection of D’Annunzio’s short stories titled Mäss (“Revolt”, 1915). The latter initiatives were associated with the modernist movement Young Estonia (Noor-Eesti), with Young Estonian poet and language reformer Villem Grünthal Ridala emerging as the most prolific Estonian translator of D’Annunzio. An analysis of the newspaper and book translations reveals a consis­tent pattern of omitting or significantly manipulating the overtly explicit or morbid erotic passages found in the original works, for instance when D’Annunzio evokes forbidden sexual relations (such as incest) or associates feminine fertility and reproductive function with disease and bodily decomposition. Reviews of the translations also conveyed a somewhat negative attitude towards the content of D’Annunzio’s works, and even the Young Estonians expressed admiration for his style rather than the decadent motifs and poetics. Ridala’s translations set themselves apart from other newspaper translations by striving to closely reproduce D’Annunzio’s style, boldly leveraging it to advance Young Estonia’s project of renewing the Estonian literary language. This is especially pronounced in the translation of “The Innocent”, which not only outraged critics hostile to Young Estonia’s agenda, but also raised doubts among the movement’s own members. The analysis of the Estonian translations and reception of D’Annunzio at the beginning of the 20th century thus underscores a series of ambivalences in Young Estonia’s attitudes towards the motifs and poetics of European decadence, on the one hand, and the renewal of the Estonian language and literary style through translation, on the other.

This article aims to reconstruct the philosophical message found in Jaan Oks’ fragmentary works “Females” (Emased, 1908), “Flesh” (Ihu, 1908), and “Nameless Beast” (Nimetu elajas, 1909). The author argues that within these works, amidst alternating and colliding voices, a louder and more distinct one emerges – a prophetic-philosophical narrator who uses unfolding sketches to provide broad metaphysical generalizations and assessments, primarily concerning human nature and gender differences. In addition to reconstructing the philosophical positions, these are compared with Friedrich Nietzsche’s views on the same subjects, exploring the extent of Nietzsche’s influence on Oks’ works. In the first step of the interpretation, the article examines how Oks’ texts define human nature. Human beings are reduced to natural creatures lacking a soul, with sexual drive at the core of their essence. A comparison reveals significant similarities between Oks and Nietzsche’s perspectives on human nature. Both also declare the invalidity of Christian moral teachings. However, Oks’ texts do not lead to a ­celebration of the natural human sexual drive; instead, an aversion persists. The article continues with a reconstruction of the philosophical generalizations explaining this situation. In the second step, the article explores the relationship of Oks’ texts with secularization. It becomes apparent that the divine, transcendent sphere cannot be simply erased from Oks’ works, despite declarations to the contrary. For Oks, God remains a problem addressed through blasphemous fantasies in the examined works. Additionally, the hypothetical godless life is not enjoyable for Oks’ philosophical voice; existential meaninglessness dominates. The mood contained in Oks’ works is compared with Nietzsche’s concept of the “death of God”, finding significant similarities. In the third aspect, the article examines the relationships between the two sexes. Here, too, substantial overlaps are identified between Oks and Nietzsche’s perspectives. Both assert an insurmountable tension and conflict between the sexes, emphasizing women’s greater affinity to nature. In Oks’ works, men are attributed the desire to distance themselves from their nature – sexual drive – and retreat into solitude. From this distance, the female sex is insulted and degraded so vehemently and at such great length that a parallel can be drawn to a blasphemous relationship with God. The final section examines the pursuit of detachment from life, of overcoming humanity, attributed to the poet in Oks’ works, comparing it to Nietzsche’s concept of art. Despite several similarities, a significant difference emerges: Nietzsche understands art’s main purpose vitalistically, as a means to overcome decadence, the defining movement of his era. This requires the overcoming of humanity as it exists. Oks’ conception, on the other hand, remains programmatically decadent and is directed towards the decline and end of humankind.

This essay explores the emergence and evolution of a literary and artistic trend in Soviet Estonia from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. During this period, young philologists, poets, artists and essayists re-discovered the decadence of the fin-de-siècle and its Estonian expressions as a significant source of inspiration. Generally, in the official Soviet jargon, ‘decadence’ was a highly derogatory term, used during Stalin’s rule to stigmatize all of Western bourgeois culture. Consequently, patriotic scholars, even in the face of easing circumstances, were hesitant to associate early 20th century artists with decadence, as that would have meant condemning them. By the late 1970s, the atmosphere had liberalized enough to make engaging with the motifs and attitudes of decadence less perilous. This shift also provided a means to counter the activism of the 1960s generation, whether loyal to the authorities or dissident. In 1978, Germanist Linnar Priimägi marked the initial steps of the neo-decadence trend with the theoretical manifesto “Decadence as a Cognitive Constant” and the generational manifesto “Tartu Autumn”, co-written with art historian Ants Juske. The former text associated decadence with the appreciation of dispassionate beauty, while the latter expressed refined indolence as the main characteristic of the young generation. References to the decadents of the early 20th century became common among the younger generation of poets, including Doris Kareva, Aado Lintrop, Indrek Hirv, Ilmar Trull, and Hasso Krull. This was accompanied by the rehabilitation of Estonian and Russian decadence in academic literary studies. The emergence of the neo-decadence trend may be attributed to late-Soviet social fatigue and stagnation, the generational desire to distinguish from the dominant 1960s generation, and the growing influence of postmodernism as a departure from the international constructivist and austere style of high modernism. Contemporary criticism occasionally discussed signs of Stoicism, Skepticism, and Epicureanism in culture, sometimes drawing parallels between the emerging postmodernism and Hellenistic imperial culture.

Since the emergence of decadent literature, sonnets have played a significant role within its realm. Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal contains 72 sonnets in all. In the preface to the posthumous edition of 1868, Théophile Gautier describes Baudelaire’s style as decadent. Paul Verlaine’s seminal sonnet Langueur, published in 1883, opens with the well-known line: Je suis l’Empire à la fin de la décadence (“I am the Empire at the end of decadence”). This sonnet had an enormous impact on fin de siècle poetry, earning recognition as both the ars poetica of decadence and its most representative example. The concept of decadence also found its way into Estonian literary circles through sonnets when Johannes Aavik published his article Charles Baudelaire ja dekadentismus (“Charles Baudelaire and the Decadent movement”) in 1905, alongside translations of Baudelaire’s poems, including two sonnets (De profundis clamavi and La Destruction). The first original Estonian decadent sonnets appeared four years later, in 1909, marking the beginning of their heyday in the subsequent decades. The aim of the article is twofold: to explore the development of the Estonian decadent sonnet within a cultural-historical context, primarily drawing from the 1903/1904 correspondence between Gustav Suits and Johannes Aavik, who first introduced the decadent sonnet to Estonian culture. Additionally, the article delves into the poetics of the Estonian decadent sonnet, distinguishing between three types, often intertwined: firstly, those expressing decadent melancholy; secondly, sonnets depicting aestheticism, synaesthesia, and the dissolution of perceptual boundaries; and finally, poems expressing the so-called radical decadence of the Estonian sonnet – conveying moral decline, sexual desires, and excessively morbid motifs.

This article examines the image of 'flowers of evil' as an imago image — an imaginary image of a real object. The term 'imago' was first used in this sense by Carl Jung in 1912. The work proposes a novel approach to investigating the image of 'flowers of evil'. The com­pa­rative historical, analytical and psychoanalytic methods of text examination revealed that, in his novel À rebours, Huysmans espouses Baudelaire's celebrated image, representing it pri­marily as a notion of something bizarre, extraordinary, transmuted and dangerous. This is achieved through the reception of the image of 'flowers of evil' embodied by Huysmans in a series of vegetative appearances, such as the collection of exotic plants, the lotus in the hands of Salome and the nidularium seen in a dream. It is concluded that Huysmans uses phy­to­nymic images to demonstrate his belief that his decadent contemporaries, personified in the cha­racter of Jean Desessent, perceive Baudelaire's work superficially, inaccurately and too lite­rally, making them accomplices in the 'burial' of everything associated with 'old' values. Therefore, as a poetic image, Baudelaire's 'flowers of evil' align with the explored 'imago' methodology as they generate multiple interpretive chains representing independent acts of creativity.

This paper is the first attempt to interpret the visual 'construemes' by the constructivist poet Alexei N. Chicherin, published in the anthology Mena vsekh (Moscow, 1924). 'Const­rue­mes' can be considered the most enigmatic artefacts of the Russian avant-garde. Although 'construemes' can be easily confused with meaningless visual zaum ('the transra­tio­nal'), Chicherin's actions and the very nature of his personality prevent one from inter­preting 'con­struemes' as actionist endeavours to scandalise or a 'play on nonsense'. Analysis of the poet's treatise Kan-Fun (Moscow, 1926), which required finding the key to deciphering the 'const­ruemes', reveals the positivist nature of Chicherin's visual-phonological exercises. In the trea­tise, the poet argues for the primacy of the eye and vision. He illustrates synthetic 'signs' or 'pictograms' with the quotidian example of propaganda posters, capable of influen­cing mil­lions more effectively than words alone. The study emphasises the enigmatic nature of the titles of Chicherin's books, the Nie­tzschean subtexts of his self-presentation, encrypted allusions to the esoteric and magical tra­dition of the Tarot, and religious symbolism. Sixteen illustrations help understand Chi­che­rin's logic behind the creation of his four 'construemes', including the most mysterious com­position called 'Raman' ('the shortest Kan-Fun Novel in the world'). The structure of this text synthesises the verbal, visual-graphic, acoustic (phonological symbols) and musical (notes) levels. The article also examines Chicherin's proven techniques: the appropriation of the sacred dimension and self-presentation as an actor possessing genuine knowledge and ca­pable of competing alone with the entire literary environment.

This paper shall make a modest attempt to focus on the poetic vision of Jayanta Mahapatra, the legendary Indian English poet vis-vis his obsession to depict the socio-cultural milieu of his native land Odisha. His whole repertoire of poetry revolves around a golden quadrangle of Cuttack, Puri, Konark and Bhubaneswar with nostalgic description of past glorious legacy and painful narration of the present decadence. With Introvert and withdrawn syndromes explicitly visible in his personality, Jayanta Mahapatra is a keen observer of society in its myriad manifestations. It may be the emotionally shocking revelation of the Fisher man willing to push his daughter into prostitution or the waiting by the widows to be cremated at Puri or of lost chivalry of Kalinga (Odia) soldiers who valiantly fought in Historic Kalinga war to turn ruthless king Ashok into a spiritual person embracing Buddhism. The shocking depiction of his grandfather Chintamani Mahapatra's helplessness during the great Famine of 1866 to embrace Christianity speaks volumes about his regret to spurn Hinduism and switch over to Christianity under duress. His recurrent images 'rain', 'door', 'sleep', 'silence', 'mouth', 'dream,' 'memory' etc. obviously refer to his unhappiness with the present decadent culture. The entire spectrum of Mahapatra's poetry resonates with the native syndrome and the juxtaposition of lost legacy and prevalent decadence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Felsefe ve Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi (FLSF) is the property of Felsefe ve Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi (FLSF) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Art of Words / Umjetnost Riječi is the property of Umjetnost Rijeci and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Tropelías: Revista de Teoría de la Literatura y Literatura Comparada is the property of Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This essay explores the emergence and evolution of a literary and artistic trend in Soviet Estonia from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. During this period, young philologists, poets, artists and essayists re-discovered the decadence of the fin-de-siècle and its Estonian expressions as a significant source of inspiration. Generally, in the official Soviet jargon, 'decadence' was a highly derogatory term, used during Stalin's rule to stigmatize all of Western bourgeois culture. Consequently, patriotic scholars, even in the face of easing circumstances, were hesitant to associate early 20th century artists with decadence, as that would have meant condemning them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the emergence of decadent literature, sonnets have played a significant role within its realm. Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal contains 72 sonnets in all. In the preface to the posthumous edition of 1868, Theophile Gautier describes Baudelaire's style as decadent. Paul Verlaine's seminal sonnet Langueur, published in 1883, opens with the well-known line: Je suis l'Empire à la fin de la decadence ("I am the Empire at the end of decadence"). This sonnet had an enormous impact on fin de siècle poetry, earning recognition as both the ars poetica of decadence and its most representative example. The concept of decadence also found its way into Estonian literary circles through sonnets when Johannes Aavik published his article Charles Baudelaire ja dekadentismus ("Charles Baudelaire and the Decadent movement") in 1905, alongside translations of Baudelaire's poems, including two sonnets (De profundis clamavi and La Destruction). The first original Estonian decadent sonnets appeared four years later, in 1909, marking the beginning of their heyday in the subsequent decades. The aim of the article is twofold: to explore the development of the Estonian decadent sonnet within a cultural-historical context, primarily drawing from the 1903/1904 correspondence between Gustav Suits and Johannes Aavik, who first introduced the decadent sonnet to Estonian culture. Additionally, the article delves into the poetics of the Estonian decadent sonnet, distinguishing between three types, often intertwined: firstly, those expressing decadent melancholy; secondly, sonnets depicting aestheticism, synaesthesia, and the dissolution of perceptual boundaries; and finally, poems expressing the so-called radical decadence of the Estonian son- net - conveying moral decline, sexual desires, and excessively morbid motifs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to reconstruct the philosophical message found in Jaan Oks' fragmentary works "Females" (Emased, 1908), "Flesh" (Ihu, 1908), and "Nameless Beast" (Nimetu elajas, 1909). The author argues that within these works, amidst alternating and colliding voices, a louder and more distinct one emerges - a prophetic- philosophical narrator who uses unfolding sketches to provide broad metaphysical generalizations and assessments, primarily concerning human nature and gender differences. In addition to reconstructing the philosophical positions, these are compared with Friedrich Nietzsche's views on the same subjects, exploring the extent of Nietzsche's influence on Oks' works. In the first step of the interpretation, the article examines how Oks' texts define human nature. Human beings are reduced to natural creatures lacking a soul, with sexual drive at the core of their essence. A comparison reveals significant similarities between Oks and Nietzsche's perspectives on human nature. Both also declare the invalidity of Christian moral teachings. However, Oks' texts do not lead to a celebration of the natural human sexual drive; instead, an aversion persists. The article continues with a reconstruction of the philosophical generalizations explaining this situation. In the second step, the article explores the relationship of Oks' texts with secularization. It becomes apparent that the divine, transcendent sphere cannot be simply erased from Oks' works, despite declarations to the contrary. For Oks, God remains a problem addressed through blasphemous fantasies in the examined works. Additionally, the hypothetical godless life is not enjoyable for Oks' philosophical voice; existential meaninglessness dominates. The mood contained in Oks' works is compared with Nietzsche's concept of the "death of God", finding significant similarities. In the third aspect, the article examines the relationships between the two sexes. Here, too, substantial overlaps are identified between Oks and Nietzsche's perspectives. Both assert an insurmountable tension and conflict between the sexes, emphasizing women's greater affinity to nature. In Oks' works, men are attributed the desire to distance themselves from their nature - sexual drive - and retreat into solitude. From this distance, the female sex is insulted and degraded so vehemently and at such great length that a parallel can be drawn to a blasphemous relationship with God. The final section examines the pursuit of detachment from life, of overcoming humanity, attributed to the poet in Oks' works, comparing it to Nietzsche's concept of art. Despite several similarities, a significant difference emerges: Nietzsche understands art's main purpose vitalistically, as a means to overcome decadence, the defining movement of his era. This requires the overcoming of humanity as it exists. Oks' conception, on the other hand, remains programmatically decadent and is directed towards the decline and end of humankind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the Estonian translations and reception of the Italian decadent writer, poet, and playwright Gabriele D'Annunzio during the period 1906-1915, encompassing a total of 13 published translations. These include a series of short stories featured in Estonian newspapers and magazines, along with two separate books: the novel Süütu ("The Innocent", 1913) and a collection of D'Annunzio's short stories titled Mäss ("Revolt", 1915). The latter initiatives were associated with the modernist movement Young Estonia (Noor-Eesti), with Young Estonian poet and language reformer Villem Grünthal Ridala emerging as the most prolific Estonian translator of D'Annunzio. An analysis of the newspaper and book translations reveals a consistent pattern of omitting or significantly manipulating the overtly explicit or morbid erotic passages found in the original works, for instance when D'Annunzio evokes forbidden sexual relations (such as incest) or associates feminine fertility and reproductive function with disease and bodily decomposition. Reviews of the translations also conveyed a somewhat negative attitude towards the content of D'Annunzio's works, and even the Young Estonians expressed admiration for his style rather than the decadent motifs and poetics. Ridala's translations set themselves apart from other newspaper translations by striving to closely reproduce D'Annunzio's style, boldly leveraging it to advance Young Estonia's project of renewing the Estonian literary language. This is especially pronounced in the translation of "The Innocent", which not only outraged critics hostile to Young Estonia's agenda, but also raised doubts among the movement's own members. The analysis of the Estonian translations and reception of D'Annunzio at the beginning of the 20th century thus underscores a series of ambivalences in Young Estonia's attitudes towards the motifs and poetics of European decadence, on the one hand, and the renewal of the Estonian language and literary style through translation, on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The novel by George Sylvester Viereck (1884–1962) The House of the Vampire (1907) has become one of the most striking phenomena of American decadent literature and continues to attract the attention of literary scholars. Despite the contradictory and sometimes abusive reviews of contemporaries, the book aroused interest and proved to be commercially successful. The ambitious author decided to exploit the success and remake the novel into a play. Viereck had already tried his hand at writing plays, but his collection A Game at Love and Other Plays (1906) “were not, at least, written with an eye to the stage” (author’s preface). Success on the Broadway stage required the help of a professional playwright Edgar Allan Woolf (1881–1943), Viereck’s friend. The play entitled Vampire was staged in January, 1909 under both names, although the dramatization belonged entirely to Woolf. Adapting the novel to the stage and focusing on commercial success with the public, Woolf changed some details of the plot and the names of the characters and also added a happy-end. “My collaborator in the dramatization introduced a number of distinctly human features not contained in the novel,” Viereck wrote. The script was never published and no performance copy seems to have survived, so it has to be judged only from newspaper summaries and reviews. The article for the first time publishes an opinion about this play and Viereck's novel, given by the fiction writer and editor Ethel May Kelley (1878–1955) in a private letter of March, 1909 (the original is in the author's collection).

Joris-Karl Huysmans’ Catholic tetralogy, composed of the novels Là-bas (1891), En route (1895), La Cathédrale (1898), and L’Oblat (1903), offers the reader a buffet of sensorial delights, an aesthetic methodology that follows the structure of À rebours while circumscribing it within the framework of orthodox faith. This article examines how Huysmans manipulates aesthetic experience as a conduit for metaphysical belief, elaborating a mechanism whereby the senses function as an essential part of religiosity.

Resumo: Propomos neste estudo reconstituir, através da obra do pensador alemão, parte da relação que une Nietzsche a Epicuro. Isso nos levará a estudar os temas da díade apolíneo-dionisíaco, do Übermensch1 e, finalmente, o tema da décadence ao qual se liga a figura de Epicuro a partir de um determinado período. Nosso posicionamento teórico consiste em dizer que há um fio condutor do pensamento epicurista na obra nietzschiana, que o torna uma fonte contínua de inspiração para forjar em parte seus principais conceitos.

This article examines the portrayal of socially active modern urban women in Marta Sillaots’s novellas “Juta” (1912) and “Anna Holm” (1913), as well as in Alide Ertel’s short story collection “The Modern Lady” (Moodne daam, 1919/1920). The characters are analyzed within the framework of the “New Woman”, as surveys sort both Sillaots’s and Ertel’s early works under the theme of women’s emancipation, without acknowledging that they depict emancipated women in a negative light. Such women are characterized by a pursuit of independence, cultural interests, and creativity; mostly, they appear sympathetic at first. However, the authors’ ultimate judgment of these women’s aspirations is one of disapproval – they turn out to be nothing but frivolous socialites. The article contextualizes these characters within earlier depictions of emancipated women in Estonian literature and examines the social and cultural factors that may have motivated this kind of literary portrayal. It is concluded that the authors in question were drawn to the image of an independent woman, but in the 1910s Estonia, a broadly suitable social space did not yet exist for such an image, nor had fitting literary plots been established. This led to an ambiguity surrounding these characters. A particularly vivid example is Sillaots’s character Juta, who appears in two novellas and is initially developed as an extraordinary, decadent female figure. She possesses a lively imagination and an independent mindset, while also functioning as a morbidly passive observer; she is interested in the sciences of the mind and conducts psychological experiments on both herself and others. However, as there seems to be no clear path for such a character, she is relegated to the status of a peripheral cautionary figure, a doll-faced socialite, in the later text. Similarly, Ertel’s short story protagonists have no other outlet besides trivial social life. The analyzed characters deviate from the traditional monogamous heterosexual marriage – a defining point for the New Woman, which, however, upon closer examination often proves a tragic necessity rather than a mark of independence. As such, the portrayal of the modern lady exemplifies the tensions within the category of the New Woman: neither the characters nor the authors are entirely certain what a woman’s role should be in the contemporary urban society; which behaviours should be considered bold and independent, and which ones should be seen as moral laxity or meaningless social provocation.

Investiga-se, neste artigo, como as abordagens de Nietzsche sobre a fisiologia da arte se tornam operatórias, no último ano de sua produção filosófica, para consumar a crítica da décadence moderna. Através da embriaguez, da transfiguração e do aumento de poder, a fisiologia da arte poderia revelar novos caminhos para expressar os valores da vida ascendente, em contraposição aos movimentos decadenciais. Questiona-se, enfim, se a vontade de poder é um critério satisfatório para a afirmação e a transfiguração artística da existência.

Copyright of Essays in French Literature & Culture is the property of University of Western Australia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Essays in French Literature & Culture is the property of University of Western Australia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Pour le psychanalyste Donald Winnicott, le jeu constitue une « valeur positive de l’illusion » qui, pour l’adulte, ainsi que pour l’enfant, permet d’accéder à la réalité de façon graduelle et supportable. Bien que connu plutôt pour son concept de l’objet transitionnel chez les enfants, Winnicott revendique pourtant le rôle essentiel des phénomènes transitionnels à toutes les étapes de la vie, à tout le moins celui de la création artistique. Cet article vise à mettre en jeu la psychologie de Winnicott, surtout de son livre Jeu et réalité (1971) et La Décadence latine (1884 & seq.) de Joséphin Péladan, œuvre méconnue et insuffisamment étudiée de la littérature décadente. S’appropriant un regard nostalgique sur l’histoire, Péladan la transforme en fantaisie contre-culturelle qui constitue un acte de résistance au présent. Il se crée une alternative à l’histoire, une « expérience illusoire » qui, moitié jeu, moitié reformulation de la réalité, lui fournit une façon de contourner la déchéance morale. Or, Péladan oppose à ses peurs de la fin de la latinité une nouvelle trajectoire historique de son innovation propre afin de réécrire le monde à rebours.

This essay argues that Ralph Waldo Emerson's thinking and style are governed by a hitherto unrecognized "logic of decadence" that manifests as a fascination with the philosophical and ethical functions of negativity, decay, and destruction. It discerns in Emersonianism a peculiarly American idiolect of decadence—an "alter-decadence"—that emerges from similar sources as that of the fin de siecle Decadent movement but evolves in a divergent direction, notably by valorizing the dialectical tension between the totality of nature and its parts instead of celebrating the breakdown of holistic unities. The first section argues that although critics have long invoked tropes of decadence to describe features of Emerson's work, they have generally misunderstood their functions. The second section excavates ideas about decadence that Emerson received in his reading of historians like Montesquieu and Edward Gibbon, arguing that even in his early thinking Emerson was adapting a historical logic of decadence in order to reconcile his alternately monistic and pluralistic views of the universe. The final section explores how the logic of decadence provides an infrastructure for Emerson to develop these metaphysical concerns into an ethic of relationality and contingency that eschews belief in absolute conceptions of the good. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the portrayal of socially active modern urban women in Marta Sillaots’s novellas “Juta” (1912) and “Anna Holm” (1913), as well as in Alide Ertel’s short story collection “The Modern Lady” (Moodne daam, 1919/1920). The characters are analyzed within the framework of the “New Woman”, as surveys sort both Sillaots’s and Ertel’s early works under the theme of women’s emancipation, without acknowledging that they depict emancipated women in a negative light. Such women are characterized by a pursuit of independence, cultural interests, and creativity; mostly, they appear sympathetic at first. However, the authors’ ultimate judgment of these women’s aspirations is one of disapproval – they turn out to be nothing but frivolous socialites. The article contextualizes these characters within earlier depictions of emancipated women in Estonian literature and examines the social and cultural factors that may have motivated this kind of literary portrayal. It is concluded that the authors in question were drawn to the image of an independent woman, but in the 1910s Estonia, a broadly suitable social space did not yet exist for such an image, nor had fitting literary plots been established. This led to an ambiguity surrounding these characters. A particularly vivid example is Sillaots’s character Juta, who appears in two novellas and is initially developed as an extraordinary, decadent female figure. She possesses a lively imagination and an independent mindset, while also functioning as a morbidly passive observer; she is interested in the sciences of the mind and conducts psychological experiments on both herself and others. However, as there seems to be no clear path for such a character, she is relegated to the status of a peripheral cautionary figure, a doll-faced socialite, in the later text. Similarly, Ertel’s short story protagonists have no other outlet besides trivial social life. The analyzed characters deviate from the traditional monogamous heterosexual marriage – a defining point for the New Woman, which, however, upon closer examination often proves a tragic necessity rather than a mark of independence. As such, the portrayal of the modern lady exemplifies the tensions within the category of the New Woman: neither the characters nor the authors are entirely certain what a woman’s role should be in the contemporary urban society; which behaviours should be considered bold and independent, and which ones should be seen as moral laxity or meaningless social provocation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]