The Degenerate Muse: American Nature, Modernist Poetry, and the Problem of Cultural Hygiene

摘要

Published in 1895, Max Simon Nordau's Degeneration argued that overcivilization, progress, and wealth were destroying Western culture. He found examples of such decadence in the work of Western artists, correlating what he perceived to be a decay of their vigor with mental illness. In the early years of the twentieth century, fears of such dangers inherent in industrialization triggered a back-to-nature movement in the United States that many historians have attributed to a rejection of the artificial modern world of smoke-belching factories, undesirable immigrants, and stultifying cities that left their inhabitants feeling detached from any meaningful interaction with the real natural world.