Death and the Afterlife in Modern France. Thomas A. Kselman

1996 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 201-203
Author(s):  
Michel Lagree
Keyword(s):  
Modern France

Translation and the Arts in Modern France, edited by Sonya Stephens

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 383-385
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Geary Keohane
Keyword(s):  
The Arts ◽  
Modern France

Cosmopolitan Classicism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Evangelista
Keyword(s):  
Oscar Wilde ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
French Language ◽  
Personal Freedom ◽  
Intellectual Engagement ◽  
Classical Reception ◽  
Modern France ◽  
Pierre Louys ◽  
Hellenistic Greece

Oscar Wilde associated ancient Greece and modern France as the homelands of artistic autonomy and personal freedom. France and the French language were crucial in his adoption of a cosmopolitan identity in which his close emotional and intellectual engagement with the ancient world also played a key role. His practices of classical reception therefore have roots in the French as well as English traditions. Wilde’s attitude towards ancient Greece initially shows the influence of French Parnassian poetry. As time goes on, however, he starts to engage with the new images of the ancient world promoted by Decadence and Symbolism, which sidelined the Greek classicism idealized by the Parnassians in favour of Hellenistic and Latin antiquity. Particularly important to Wilde were his exchanges with French Symbolist authors Marcel Schwob and Pierre Louÿs, whose writings on Hellenistic Greece are in dialogue with Wilde’s works, notably ‘The Critic as Artist’ and Salomé.

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