The Poetics of Decadence in Fin-de-Siècle Italy

In the 1880s and 1890s, materialism in art was counterbalanced by attention to the subjective individual experience, expressed in the new modes inaugurated by Symbolism, Decadence and Aestheticism. In particular, Decadent artists and writers inspired the lasting name of an age fascinated by the contemplation of luxury and decay: the fin de siècle. Notions of decadence and degeneration were not limited to aesthetic experience but were regarded as sociological phenomena and attained pseudoscientif