Published : 2026-08-07

The Decadentism of the Parnassian Poets

Abstract

By revealing the bonds of friendship and mutual influences between the Parnassian poets and the Decadent poets, a literary history attentive to these connections invites us to reconsider the overly strict boundaries established between these two movements. A comparison of Parnassian and Decadent poetics reveals six main points of convergence, which highlight what is potentially decadent in the Parnassians and effectively Parnassian in the Decadents: pessimism towards modernity, resulting in a turn towards the doctrine of art for art’s sake; the search for the refinement of form; a nostalgia for beauty untainted by evil or suffering; the figure of the femme fatale; the evocation of sadism and cruelty; and an interest in perversions, particularly sexual ones.

Keywords:

Parnasse, decadence, poetry, poetics, literary history



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Roczniki Humanistyczne · ISSN 0035-7707 | eISSN 2544-5200 | DOI: 10.18290/rh
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