Fin de siècle
[6] The themes of fin de siècle political culture were very controversial and have been cited as a major influence on fascism[7][8] and as a generator of the science of geopolitics, including the theory of Lebensraum.
What we now think of geopolitics had its origins in fin de siècle Europe in response to technological change ... and the creation of a "closed political system" as European imperialist competition extinguished the world's "frontiers".
[7] The fin de siècle generation supported emotionalism, irrationalism, subjectivism, and vitalism,[8] while the mindset of the age saw civilization as being in a crisis that required a massive and total solution.
[13] The former term was understood to mean a pathological degree of self-absorption and unreasonable attention to one's own sentiments and activities, as can be seen in the extremely descriptive nature of minute details; the latter referred to the impaired ability to translate primary perceptions into fully developed ideas, largely noted in symbolist works.
[14] Nordau's treatment of these traits as degenerative qualities lends to the perception of a world falling into decay through fin de siècle corruptions of thought, and influencing the pessimism growing in Europe's philosophical consciousness.
The focus on psycho-physiology, now psychology, was a large part of fin de siècle society[15] in that it studied a topic that could not be depicted through Romanticism, but relied on traits exhibited to suggest how the mind works, as does symbolism.
The genius and the imbecile were determined to have largely similar character traits, including les delires des grandeurs and la folie du doute.
"[17] Wilde's reflection on personal philosophy as more culturally significant than religion lends credence to degeneration theory, as applied to Baudelaire's influence on other nations.
The newly fashionable pessimism appears again in Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, written that same year: Algernon: I hope tomorrow will be a fine day, Lane.
Both groups believed the purpose of art was to evoke an emotional response and demonstrate the beauty inherent in the unnatural as opposed to trying to teach its audience an infallible sense of morality.
[19] In the Victorian fin de siècle, the themes of degeneration and anxiety are expressed not only through the physical landscape which provided a backdrop for Gothic Literature, but also through the human body itself.
Works such as Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Arthur Machen's The Great God Pan (1894), H. G. Wells' The Time Machine (1895), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) and Richard Marsh's The Beetle (1897) all explore themes of change, development, evolution, mutation, corruption and decay in relation to the human body and mind.
