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decadence
dec·a·dence D0065600 (dĕk′ə-dəns, dĭ-kād′ns)n.1. A process, condition, or period of deterioration or decline, as in morals or art; decay.2. often Decadence A literary movement especially of late 19th-century France and England characterized by refined aestheticism, artifice, and the quest for new sensations. [French décadence, from Old French decadence, from Medieval Latin dēcadentia, a decaying, declining, from Vulgar Latin *dēcadere, to decay; see decay.]decadence (ˈdɛkədəns) or decadencyn1. deterioration, esp of morality or culture; decay; degeneration2. the state reached through such a process[C16: from French, from Medieval Latin dēcadentia, literally: a falling away; see decay]dec•a•dence (ˈdɛk ə dəns, dɪˈkeɪd ns) also dec•a•den•cy (ˈdɛk ə dən si, dɪˈkeɪd n-) n. 1. the act or process of falling into decay; deterioration. 2. moral degeneration. [1540–50; < Middle French < Medieval Latin dēcadentia= Late Latin dēcadent-, s. of dēcadēns, present participle of dēcadere to fall away] Decadence bread and circuses Free food and entertainment, particularly that which a government provides in order to appease the common people. Such is reputed to bring about a civilization’s decline by undermining the initiative of the populace, and the term has come to mean collective degeneration or debauchery. According to Juvenal’s Satires, panem et circenses were the two things most coveted by the Roman people. Bread and Circuses was the title of a book by H. P. Eden (1914). Rudyard Kipling used the expression in Debits and Credits (1924): Rome has always debauched her beloved Provincia with bread and circuses. the primrose path The route of pleasure and decadence; a frivolous, self-indulgent life. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth the drunken porter, playing at being the tender of Hell gate, says: I had thought to have let in some of all professions that go the primrose way to the everlasting bonfire. (II, iii) The expression connotes a colorful, blossomy course of luxury and ease, but as commonly used also includes the implication that such a carefree, self-gratifying life cannot be enjoyed without paying a price. Never to sell his soul by travelling the primrose path to wealth and distinction. (James A. Froude, Thomas Carlyle, 1882) wine and roses Wanton decadence and luxury; indulgence in pleasure and promiscuity; la dolce vita. This expression, often extended to days of wine and roses, alludes to the opulence as well as the depravity of the primrose path. The longer expression was popularized by an early 1960s film and song so entitled. ThesaurusNoun | 1. | decadence - the state of being degenerate in mental or moral qualitiesdecadency, degeneracy, degenerationabasement, abjection, degradation - a low or downcast state; "each confession brought her into an attitude of abasement"- H.L.Menchken |
decadencenoun degeneration, decline, corruption, fall, decay, deterioration, dissolution, perversion, dissipation, debasement, retrogression a prime example of the decadence of the agedecadencenounDescent to a lower level or condition:atrophy, declension, declination, decline, degeneracy, degeneration, deterioration.Translationsdecadence (ˈdekədəns) noun1. a falling from high to low standards in morals or the arts. the decadence of the late Roman empire. 衰微,墮落 衰微,堕落 2. the state of having low or incorrect standards of behaviour; immorality. He lived a life of decadence. 頹廢 颓废ˈdecadent adjectivea decadent young man. 頹廢 颓废 decadence ends in -ence (not -ance). Decadence
Decadence the general name for crisis phenomena of bourgeois culture in the late 19th and early 20th century, marked by individualism and by attitudes of hopelessness and aversion to life. A number of features of the decadent attitude also distinguish certain currents in art that are unified under the term “modernism.” A complex and contradictory phenomenon, decadence originated in the crisis of bourgeois consciousness, reflected in the confusion of many artists in the face of the sharp antagonisms of social reality and in the face of revolution, which they regarded only as a destructive force in history. The decadents felt that any conception of social progress, any form of class struggle, had blatantly utilitarian purposes and was therefore to be rejected. “The greatest historical movements of mankind appear to them deeply ‘philistine’ by their very nature” (G. V. Plekhanov, Literatura i estetika, vol. 2, 1958, p. 475). The decadents regarded art’s renunciation of political and civic themes and motifs as a manifestation of freedom of creativity. Their view of the freedom of the individual was inseparable from the aestheticizing of individualism, and their worship of beauty as the highest value was frequently pervaded by amoralism. Nonexistence and death were constant motifs for the decadents. As a characteristic trend of the times, decadence cannot be categorized under any one current or group of several currents in art. The attitudes of decadence affected the works of a sizable segment of artists in the late 19th and early 20th century, including many major masters of the arts whose work as a whole cannot be reduced to decadence. The motifs of decadence were manifested in the clearest form for the first time in the poetry of French symbolism—in the work of the so-called accursed poets (P. Verlaine, A. Rimbaud, S. Mallarmé). Their ideas and attitudes were developed by P. Valéry, P. P. Fort, and A. Gide. In Great Britain, features of decadence marked the work of the Pre-Raphaelites (D. G. Rossetti, H. Hunt), as well as of A. Beardsley and A. Swinburne, who were close to them. In Italy, the attitudes of decadence were reflected in the work of G. Pascoli, A. Oriani, and G. D’Annunzio. The influence of decadence was also felt in the work of such major artists of the late 19th and early 20th century as O. Wilde in Great Britain, M. Maeterlinck in Belgium, H. Hofmannsthal and R. M. Rilke in Austria, and M. Proust in France. An aversion to reality, motifs of despair and nihilism, and a longing for spiritual ideals were all given artistically expressive force by the major artists who had been seized by decadent attitudes; these attitudes evoked sympathy and support from realist writers, such as T. Mann, R. Martin du Gard, and W. Faulkner, who had retained faith in the values of bourgeois humanism. In Russia, decadence was reflected in the work of the symbolist poets (above all the so-called elder symbolists of the 1890’s: N. Minskii, D. Merezhkovskii, and Z. Hippius [for a critique, see Plekhanov’s article “The Gospel According to the Decadents”] and, later, V. Briusov and K. Bal’mont), in a number of works by L. N. Andreev, in the works of F. Sologub, and especially in the naturalistic prose of M. P. Artsybashev and A. P. Kamenskii. The attitudes of decadence became especially widespread after the defeat of the Revolution of 1905-07. Realist writers (L. N. Tolstoi, V. G. Korolenko, and M. Gorky) and progressive authors and critics (V. V. Stasov, V. V. Vorovskii, and G. V. Plekhanov. actively fought against attitudes of decadence in Russian art and literature. After the October Revolution the fight against such attitudes was continued by Soviet literary and art criticism. Many motifs of the decadent frame of mind have become the property of various modernist artistic currents. Progressive realist art, and above all the art of socialist realism, develops in a constant struggle against them. In criticizing various manifestations in art and literature of the attitudes of decay or decline, Marxist-Leninist aesthetics proceeds from the principles of high ideological content, identification with the people, and party-mindedness in art. REFERENCESPlekhanov, G. V. “Iskusstvo i obshchestvennaia zhiznl’ In Iskusstvo i literatura. Moscow, 1948. Tolstoi, L. N. “Chto takoe iskusstvo?” Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 30. Moscow, 1951. Gorky, M. “Pol’ Verlen i dekadenty.” Sobr. soch., vol. 23. Moscow, 1953. Vorovskii, V. V. Literaturno-kriticheskie stat’i. Moscow, 1956. Gourmont, R. de. Kniga masok. St. Petersburg, 1913. (Translated from French.) Merezhkovskii, D. S. “O prichinakh upadka i o novykh techeniiakh sovremennoi russkoi literatury.” Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 18. Moscow, 1914. Asmus, V. F. “Filosofiia i estetika russkogo simvolizma.” In Literaturnoe nasledstvo, vols. 27-28. Moscow, 1937. Verlaine, P. Les Poetes maudits. Paris, 1900. Kahn, G. Symbolistes et decadents. Paris, 1902. Alběrés, R. M.Bilan litteraire du 20 siècle. Paris, 1956. Roda, V. Decadentismo morale e decadentismo estetico. Bologna [1966].O. N. MIKHAILOV DecadenceBuddenbrooksportrays the downfall of a materialistic society. [Ger. Lit.: Buddenbrooks]cherry orchardfocal point of the declining Ranevsky estate. [Russ. Drama: Chekhov The Cherry Orchard in Magill II, 144]Diver, Dickdissatisfied psychiatrist goes downhill on alcohol. [Am. Lit.: Tender is the Night]Gray, Dorianbeautiful youth whose hedonism leads to vice and depravity. [Br. Lit.: Oscar Wilde The Picture of Dorian Gray]Great Gatsby, The1925 novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald symbolizes corruption and decadence. [Am. Lit.: The Great Gatsby]House of Ushereerie, decayed mansion collapses as master dies. [Am. Lit.: “Fall of the House of Usher” in Tales of Terror]Lonigan, StudsChicago Irishman whose life is one of physical and moral deterioration (1935). [Am. Lit.: Studs Lonigan: A Trilogy, Magill III, 1028–1030]Manhattan Transfernovel portraying the teeming greed of the city’s inhabitants. [Am. Lit.: Manhattan Transfer]Nanaindictment of social decay during Napoleon III’s reign (1860s). [Fr. Lit.: Nana, Magill I, 638–640]Remembrance of Things Pastrecords the decay of a society. [Fr. Lit.: Haydn & Fuller, 630]Satyriconnovel by Petronius depicting social excesses in imperial Rome. [Rom. Lit.: Magill II, 938]Sun Also Rises, Themoral collapse of expatriots. [Am. Lit.: The Sun Also Rises]Sound and the Fury, TheFaulkner novel about an old Southern family gone to seed: victims of lust, incest, suicide, and idiocy. [Am. Lit.: Magill I, 917]Warren, TheHaredale’s house, “mouldering to ruin.” [Br. Lit.: Barnaby Rudge]Yoknapatawpha Countynorthern Mississippi; decadent setting for Faulkner’s novels. [Am. Lit.: Hart, 955]decadence
Synonyms for decadencenoun degenerationSynonyms- degeneration
- decline
- corruption
- fall
- decay
- deterioration
- dissolution
- perversion
- dissipation
- debasement
- retrogression
Synonyms for decadencenoun descent to a lower level or conditionSynonyms- atrophy
- declension
- declination
- decline
- degeneracy
- degeneration
- deterioration
Synonyms for decadencenoun the state of being degenerate in mental or moral qualitiesSynonyms- decadency
- degeneracy
- degeneration
Related Words- abasement
- abjection
- degradation
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