The Sanity of Art


Book Description

A criticism of Max Nordau's "Degeneration."













The Sanity of Art


Book Description




The Sanity of Art


Book Description

2014 paperback edition. Written in 1895, George Bernard Shaw's "Sanity of Art" essay is a response to Max Nordau's 1892 book, "Degeneration," which criticized fin de siecle modernist trends by suggesting its practitioners were irrational, amoral, and possibly even insane with neurasthenia. Eschewing conventional morality, Shaw advocates for the right of individuals to decide for themselves the saneness of the maniacal geniuses cultivating the new aesthetic. Cover illustration by James Abbott McNeill Whistler."




Joseph Conrad and the Anthropological Dilemma


Book Description

By situating Conrad's work in relation to other writings on 'primitive' peoples, John Griffith shows how his fiction draws on prominent anthropological and biological theories regarding the degenerative potential of contacts between European and other cultures. At the same time, however, Conrad's work reflected an anthropological dilemma: he constantly posed the question of how to bridge conceptual and cultural gaps between various peoples.




The Degenerate Muse


Book Description

The early twentieth century marked a dramatic shift in the American conception of nature. This book analyzes the ways in which the scientific recasting of American nature as an antidote for degeneration influenced work of important modernist writers Harriet Monroe, Ezra Pound, and Marianne Moore.




T.P.'s Weekly


Book Description




The Connoisseur


Book Description