Matei Calinescu, Five Faces of Modernity:
Modernism, Avant-Garde, Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism. Durham: Duke
University Press, 1987. 395p.
THE IDEA OF DECADENCE
The Concept of Decadence in Marxist Criticism (195)
1963 Sartre dissented from rigid views on decadentism of Soviet critics
(about Proust, Joyce, and Kafka)
Either naive view that if a society is decadent then writers expressing
it are decadent
Or say decadent society poses new problems for a writer
"Can art be decadent? ..yes, buy only if judged by its own artistic
criteria (197)
Marx and Engels didn't discuss artistic decadence
concept of decadence is constitutive element of their historical materialism
decline, decay, and inevitable collapse of ruling classes
First Marxist to propose a fully articulated theory of artistic decadence
was a Russian, Plekhanov (198-99)
doctrine of scientific criticism accepted by party
denunciation of decadence in modern literature was closer to 19th century
Russian intellectual traditions (...Tolstoi), longtime Russian ambivalence
toward Russian modernity
1912 shows direct historical link between romantic hostility to the
bourgeois mode of life and decadent (neo-romantic) negativism
decadence is duplicity
art for art's sake arises when insoluble disaccord between those engaged
in art and their social environment (200)
as a result French realism found itself at a dead end out of which
decadent tendencies developed
P makes contradictory assumptions, highly politicized view of decadence
accuses decadents of counterrevolutionary sloth
Cubism gets blanket rejection
art for art's sake becomes art for money's sake
From 1930s to 60s Soviet theory of bourgeois cultural decadence (identified
together: decadentism, modernism, and avant-garde)
English Marxist Caudwell, 1938 and 1949
decay of bourgeois civilization embodied in "dying culture" of Western
modernity
individual avant-gardists (dadists and surrealists) objective is destruction
of art
mid-1960s deStalinization caused reexamination of Soviet dogma of decadence
- Fischer, humanist Marxism in 60s (204)
discovery of unorthodox aspects of Western Marxist thought
revised notion of decadence - "ideological" and "false" character of
actually decadent art
discovers positive justification of devaluation of the subject in modern
painting
Impressionism not decay, but fresh start to new possibilities (205)
distinguish between decline or rise of mankind as a whole, decline
and rise of classes, nations, and social systems and decline or rise of
the arts
only ideological art can be decadent
Marxist state needed simple, easily identifiable notions to use for propaganda
- raeson for crude and cliche-ridden critique of decadence
Spengler and other right-wing philosophical explanations of Western
decline (298) taken as challenge by Marxist thinkers S
Adorno, "Spengler Today" 1941
critical of Spengler's "positivist" metaphysics of history
sees Spengler's criticism of liberalism as superior to that of left
wing
"reactionay critics follow Nietzsche inasmuch as they regard liberty,
humanity, and justice as nothing but a swindle devised by the weak as a
protection against the strong." (208)
Adorno rejects both Nietzsche-Spengler and leftist interpretation of
decadence (209)
vindicates notion of decadence
Adorno and Frankfurt School (moved in 1933 to France then to US)
true art and ideology are mutually exclusive
Adorno, Philosophy of Modern Music (210)
because of proliferation of falsehood and successful misuse of practically
all known art forms, genuinely modern artist forced to look for new mens
of expression - ever more negative (ascetic)
Inflexibly negative asceticism exemplified in Schoenberg
Adorno led to austere pessimism
decdence as a culture of negation - reaction to bourgeois ideology
THE IDEA OF DECADENCE
Versions of Decadence
From "Decadence"
to "Style of Decadence"
The Decadent Euphoria
Nietzsche on "Decadence"
and "Modernity"
The Concept of Decadence
in Marxist Criticism
Il Decadentismo
Links and Abbreviations (links are abbreviated by using the initials)