A Baedeker of decadence: charting a literary fashion, 1884-1927

TLDR

In the late nineteenth century, intellectuals embraced decadence, a movement reflected in novels featuring fragile, self‑absorbed protagonists preoccupied with refined aesthetics. The book catalogs thirty‑two international works of literary decadence from 1884 to 1927, offering synopses and translated passages that illustrate each author’s style and the movement’s symptoms. The study reveals a close intellectual kinship among authors such as Strindberg, Stoker, and Mann, and identifies common ingredients, themes, motifs, and preconceptions that define decadent literature.

Abstract

During the final decades of the nineteenth century, a common mind-set emerged among many intellectuals-la decadence. Many novels and novellas of the period were populated with protagonists who were fragile, refined, self-absorbed, and preoccupied with a trivially exquisite aesthetic. A Baedeker of Decadence presents thirty-two international works of literary decadence written between 1884 and 1927. George C. Schoolfield, a world authority on the decadent novel, offers an entertaining and wide-ranging commentary on this highly significant literary and cultural phenomenon. Schoolfield tracks down the symptoms of decadence in narrative works written in more than a dozen languages, providing synopses and passages in English translation to give a sense of each author's style and tone. Schoolfield throws new light on the close intellectual kinship of authors from August Strindberg to Bram Stoker to Thomas Mann, and on the ingredients, themes, motifs, and preconceptions that characterized decadent literature.