Decadence and Disquiet: Recent American Fiction and the ComingFin de Siècle

Abstract

Contemporary culture seems to be increasingly preoccupied with the millennium. “Endism,” the cult of the end, casts a familiar shadow. As memories of the cold war fade and the threat of nuclear apocalypse recedes, concerns about the environment and the disturbing activities of millenarian sects provide new sources of anxiety. Academic texts, like Robert Sinai'sThe Decadence of the Modern World(1978) and Francis Fukuyama'sThe End of History and the Last Man(1992), echo this apocalyptic atmosphere. One of the most striking versions of the endist thesis is offered by Alain Mine who, inLe Nouveau Moyen Âge(1993), suggests that modernity's dream of a “clean, well-lighted place” is being supplanted by a new medievalism, a period characterised by doubt, fear and superstition. This entropic zeigeist is sustained by a series of obvious comparisons between the anxieties of the contemporary period and those of the lastfin de siècle. Elaine Showalter'sSexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siècledetails some of the points of comparison and produces an argument which identifies a strong image of the past in her vision of the present.