Modernist Works and the Fear of the Fin de Siècle Essay -- Literature

Modernist Works and the Fear of the quintette de Sicle fin de sicle is a term which is now used to refer to the stage of the last 40 or so years of the Nineteenth Century and its art, yet at the time the word had genuine sociological connotations of modernity, social decay and chemical reaction. In France in particular though arguably throughout Europe, society was ever-changing in such a way as to merit such a pessimistic term for the trend evolving. The growing ability for the lot of the people to access all areas of society, previously only available to an grateful elite coupled with the growing crime rate and visible reduction of this elite are factors of this social phenomenon. The modernist writers, typically the youthful offspring of the disused elites, certainly used tail fin de sicle as a theme. there is evidence of a conflict with the concept of fin de sicle, yet it is too simple to say that they displayed a fear of fin de sicle. As I will try to show in this es say, the modernist reaction to and interpretation of fin de sicle is not static and, as though proportional to the development of modernity as an aesthetic, develops through works of vary mediums by different authors over the period identified as modernist. The phenomenon of fin de sicle is like any term, including modernism, not rigidly set chronologically. It squeeze out be used to describe any time in the period between about 1860 and around the beginning of the First World War. This almost coincides with the chronology of modernism. This is no coincidence, since the two are linked exp angiotensin converting enzymentially and develop so. however whether the relationship between the works of modernism and fin de sicle is one of fear, is not a clear cut yes or no situation. In ... ...arles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil, Aylesbury Oxford University Press, 1993. Joris Karl Huysmans, Against Nature, St Ives Penguin Books Ltd., 1959. doubting Thomas Mann, Death in Venice, St Iv es Penguin Books Ltd., 1971. Bram Dijkstra, Idols of Perversity - Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin de sicle culture, New York Oxford University Press, 1986. J.A. Cuddon, Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, St Ives Penguin Books Ltd., 1992. commiseration Harris, Murders and Madness - Medicine, Law and Society in the Fin de sicle, Oxford Clarendon Press, 1989. Eugen Weber, France - Fin de sicle, Massachusetts Harvard University Press, 1986. Richard David Sonn, French Anarchism as Cultural Politics in the 1890s, Michigan Ann Arbor, 1981. 1 Eugene Weber, France - Fin de Sicle, Massachusetts Harvard University Press, 1986, pp. 9 - 26