A Baedeker of Decadence
WARNING
You are viewing an older version of the Yalebooks website. Please visit out new website with more updated information and a better user experience: https://www.yalebooks.com
Charting a Literary Fashion, 1884–1927
George C. Schoolfield
View Inside
Format: ClothPrice: $74.00
During the final decades of the nineteenth century, a common mind-set emerged among many intellectuals—“la décadence.” 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.
George C. Schoolfield is professor emeritus of German and Scandinavian literature, Yale University. He is the author, editor, or translator of numerous books, among them A History of Finland’s Literature, for which the Swedish Literary Society in Finland awarded him its prestigious Tollander Prize.
"[This book] distinguishes itself. . . . [Its concentration on fiction] masterfully fills a conspicuous critical gap with commentary where it is most needed and will accordingly be most appreciated. . . . This study emerges from many years of painstaking bibliographic and analytic research, careful but often ironic attention to nuance, and unflagging, and highly intelligent reflection redolent with wit on a vast body of material. A Baedecker of Decadence should serve readers who are interested in a comprehensive tour as well as those who may want to pursue the decadent aspects of specific writers who are otherwise familiar equally well. It is a significant accomplishment to have presented the material in such a way that it is readily accessible and full of engaging insights for such a broad spectrum of readers. The authority, elegance, and wry humor of the text will not easily be exhausted even by repeated recourse to the volume."—Steven P. Sondrup, Scandinavian Studies
"Schoolfield writes in an easy, welcoming manner. . . . His chapters will provide many surprises for the reluctant Anglophone tourists, who may wish to dedicate a day or even a week to each chapter-length port of call."—Lawrence Danson, English Literature in Translation
Publication Date: December 11, 2003
