Decadent Subjects

An illuminating exploration of fin de siècle decadence “by a well-known authority in the areas of European literature, culture, and psychoanalysis” (Pre-Raphaelite Studies). The influential writer and scholar Charles Bernheimer described decadence as a “stimulant that bends thought out of shape, deforming traditional conceptual molds.” In this posthumously published work, Bernheimer succeeds in making a critical concept out of this perennially fashionable, rarely understood term. This remarkable