Fin de siècle
Fin de siècle |
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Fin de siècle (French:
The term fin de siècle is commonly applied to French art and artists, as the traits of the culture first appeared there, but the movement affected many European countries.[4][5] The term becomes applicable to the sentiments and traits associated with the culture, as opposed to focusing solely on the movement's initial recognition in France. The ideas and concerns developed by fin de siècle artists provided the impetus for movements such as symbolism and modernism.[6]
The themes of fin de siècle political culture were very controversial and have been cited as a major influence on fascism[7][8] and as a generator of the science of geopolitics, including the theory of Lebensraum.[9] Professor of Historical Geography at the University of Nottingham, Michael Heffernan, and Mackubin Thomas Owens wrote about the origins of geopolitics:
The idea that this project required a new name in 1899 reflected a widespread belief that the changes taking place in the global economic and political system were seismically important.
The "new world of the Twentieth century would need to be understood in its entirety, as an integrated global whole". Technology and global communication made the world "smaller" and turned it into a single system; the time was characterized by pan-ideas and a utopian "one-worldism," proceeding further than pan-ideas.[10][11]
What we now think of geopolitics had its origins in fin de siècle Europe in response to technological change ... and the creation of a "closed political system" as European imperialist competition extinguished the world's "frontiers".[12]
The major political theme of the era was that of revolt against materialism, rationalism, positivism, bourgeois society, and liberal democracy.[7] The fin-de-siècle generation supported emotionalism, irrationalism, subjectivism, and vitalism,[8] while the mindset of the age saw civilization as being in a crisis that required a massive and total solution.[7]
Fin-de-siècle syndrome
Michael Heffernan in his article "Fin de Siècle, Fin du Monde?" [End of the century, end of the world?] (2000) finds in the Christian world what he calls "the syndrome of fin de siècle". In 2000, this took the form of the Year 2000 problem. Fins de siècle are accompanied by future expectations:
Changes which are actually taking place at these junctures tend to acquire extra (sometimes mystical) layers of meaning. This was certainly the case in the 1890s, a decade of "semiotic arousal" when everything, it seemed, was a sign, a harbinger of some future radical disjuncture or cataclysmic upheaval ... The original French expression, meaning simply "end of century", became a catch all phrase to describe everything from the architectural and artistic styles ... to the wider, often impassioned debates about the past, the present and the future on the eve of a new century. ... Much fin-de-siècle writing ... tended to assume that the passing of the nineteenth century would represent a fundamental historical discontinuity, a clear break with the past.[10]
Degeneration theory
Pessimism
England's ideological space was affected by the philosophical waves of pessimism sweeping Europe, starting with philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer's work from before 1860 and gradually influencing artists internationally.[17] R. H. Goodale identified 235 essays by British and American authors concerning pessimism, ranging from 1871 to 1900, showing the prominence of pessimism in conjunction with English ideology.[17] Further, Oscar Wilde's references to pessimism in his works demonstrate the relevance of the ideology on the English. In An Ideal Husband, Wilde's protagonist asks another character whether "at heart, [she is] an optimist or a pessimist? Those seem to be the only two fashionable religions left to us nowadays."[17] Wilde's reflection on personal philosophy as more culturally significant than religion lends credence to degeneration theory, as applied to Baudelaire's influence on other nations.[13] However, the optimistic Romanticism popular earlier in the century would also have affected the shifting ideological landscape. The newly fashionable pessimism appears again in Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, written that same year:
Algernon: I hope tomorrow will be a fine day, Lane.
Lane: It never is, sir.
Algernon: Lane, you're a perfect pessimist.
Lane: I do my best to give satisfaction, sir.
Lane is philosophically current as of 1895, reining in his master's optimism about the weather by reminding Algernon of how the world typically operates. His pessimism gives satisfaction to Algernon; the perfect servant of a gentleman is one who is philosophically aware.[17] Charles Baudelaire's work demonstrates some of the pessimism expected of the time, and his work with modernity exemplified the decadence and decay with which turn-of-the-century French art is associated, while his work with symbolism promoted the mysticism Nordau associated with fin de siècle artists. Baudelaire's pioneering translations of Edgar Allan Poe's verse supports the aesthetic role of translation in fin de siècle culture,[18] while his own works influenced French and English artists through the use of modernity and symbolism. Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and their contemporaries became known as French decadents, a group that influenced its English counterpart, the aesthetes like Oscar Wilde. Both groups believed the purpose of art was to evoke an emotional response and demonstrate the beauty inherent in the unnatural as opposed to trying to teach its audience an infallible sense of morality.[19]
Literary conventions
In the Victorian fin de siècle, the themes of degeneration and anxiety are expressed not only through the physical landscape which provided a backdrop for Gothic Literature, but also through the human body itself. Works such as Robert Louis Stevenson's
Artistic conventions
The works of the Decadents and the
This belief in beauty in the abject leads to the obsession with artifice and symbolism, as artists rejected ineffable ideas of beauty in favour of the abstract.[14] Through symbolism, aesthetes could evoke sentiments and ideas in their audience without relying on an infallible general understanding of the world.[16]
The third trait of the culture is egoism, a term similar to that of "egomania", meaning disproportionate attention placed on one's own endeavours. This can result in a type of alienation and anguish, as in Baudelaire's case, and demonstrates how aesthetic artists chose cityscapes over country as a result of their aversion to the natural.[13]
Finally, curiosity is identifiable through diabolism and the exploration of the evil or immoral, focusing on the morbid and macabre, but without imposing any moral lessons on the audience.[14][19]
See also
- Belle Époque
- Decadent movement
- Futurism
- Gay Nineties
- Lost generation
- Symbolism (arts)
References
- ^ Schaffer, Talia. Literature and Culture at the Fin de Siècle. New York: Longman, 2007. 3.
- ^ Meštrović, Stjepan G. The Coming Fin de Siecle: An Application of Durkheim's Sociology to modernity and postmodernism. Oxford; New York: Routledge (1992 [1991]: 2).
- ^ Pireddu, Nicoletta. "Primitive marks of modernity: cultural reconfigurations in the Franco-Italian fin de siècle". Romanic Review 97 (3–4), 2006: 371–400.
- ^ McGuinness, Patrick (ed.) Symbolism, Decadence and the Fin de Siècle: French and European Perspectives. Exeter University Press, 2000: 9.
- ^ Pireddu, Nicoletta. Antropologi alla corte della bellezza. Decadenza ed economia simbolica nell'Europa fin de siècle. Verona: Fiorini, 2002.
- .
- ^ a b c Sternhell, Zeev. "Crisis of Fin-de-siècle Thought". International Fascism: Theories, Causes and the New Consensus. London and New York (1998): 169.
- ^ a b Payne, Stanley G. A history of fascism, 1914–1945. Oxford: Routledge (1995, 2005): 23–24.
- ^ Stephen Kern, Culture of Time and Space, 1880–1918 (Massachusetts & London: Harvard University Press, 1983).
- ^ a b Michael Heffernan. "Fin de Siècle, Fin du Monde? On the Origins of European Geopolitics; 1890–1920". Geopolitical Traditions: A Century of Geopolitical Thought (eds.Klaus Dodds, & David A. Atkinson, London & New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 28, 31.
- ^ Michael Heffernan. "The Politics of the Map in the Early Twentieth Century". Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 29/3, (2002): p. 207.
- JSTOR 44643038.
- ^ JSTOR 20467025.
- ^ JSTOR 427899.
- JSTOR 20479275.
- ^ JSTOR 20494209.
- ^ JSTOR 20479277.
- JSTOR 20479276.
- ^ JSTOR 40754628.
- ^ Buzwell, Greg (2014). "Gothic fiction in the Victorian fin de siècle: mutating bodies and disturbed minds". The British Library. Archived from the original on 2023-05-02. Retrieved 2016-12-10.
- ^ Degeneration, Normativity and the Gothic at the Fin de Siècle
- ^ West, Shearer. Fin de Siecle: Art and Society in an Age of Uncertainty. Overlook Press.
Further reading
- Schwartz, Hillel. Century's End: A Cultural History of the Fin de Siècle—From the 990s Through the 1990s. New York: Doubleday, 1990.
- La Belle Époque. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1982. ISBN 978-0870993299.
External links
- Fin de Siècle at The British Library