Abstract
The kind of Decadence noted in this study did not imply, in the period circumscribed, a corresponding decline in literary quality. It would certainly be a mistake in this case to associate the decline in values with a decadence in literary creativity, for the contrary occurred. The representative and renowned novels which emerged from this wavering Western society are monuments, constructed by a narrative art which is strong and powerful in depicting ‘decline’.
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Notes and References
William Barrett, ‘Existentialism as a Symptom of Man’s Contemporary Crisis’, in Stanley Romaine Hopper (ed.), Spiritual Problems in Contemporary Literature (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1957) p. 139.
György M. Vajda, ‘The Structure of the Symbolist Movement’, in Anna Balakian (ed.), A Comparative History of Literature in European Languages, vol. 2 (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1982) p. 29.
See David Lodge, The Language of Fiction (New York: Columbia University Press, 1966).
Zola, Oeuvres Complètes, vol. 10, ed. Mitterand, p. 1201.
See Gerard Genette, Narrative Discourse (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, rpt and trans. (1980).
See Tzvetan Todorov, Poétique de la prose (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1971).
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© 1984 Suzanne Nalbantian
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Nalbantian, S. (1984). The Decadent Style. In: Seeds of Decadence in the Late Nineteenth-Century Novel. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10450-5_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10450-5_7
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