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Fin de siècle is French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
 for ?end of the century‘. The term sometimes encompasses both the closing and onset of an era, as it was felt to be a period of degeneration, but at the same time a period of hope for a new beginning.

“Fin de siècle” is most commonly associated with French artists, especially the French symbolists, and was affected by the cultural awareness characteristic of France at the end of the 19th century.






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Fin de siècle is French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
 for ?end of the century‘. The term sometimes encompasses both the closing and onset of an era, as it was felt to be a period of degeneration, but at the same time a period of hope for a new beginning.

“Fin de siècle” is most commonly associated with French artists, especially the French symbolists, and was affected by the cultural awareness characteristic of France at the end of the 19th century. However, the expression is also used to refer to a European-wide cultural movement. The ideas and concerns of the fin de siècle influenced the decades to follow and played an important role in the birth of modernism
Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes both a set of cultural tendencies and an array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western culture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century....
.

Basic connotations

The expression fin de siècle usually refers to the end of the 19th century, in Europe, France and/or Paris. It has connotation
Connotation

Connotation is a Subjectivity culture and/or emotional coloration in addition to the explicit or denotation Meaning of any specific word or phrase in a...
s of decadence
Decadence

Decadence can refer to a personal trait, or to the state of a society . Used to describe a person's lifestyle, it describes a lack of moral and intellectual discipline, or in the Concise Oxford Dictionary: "a luxurious self-indulgence"....
, which are seen as typical for the last years of a culturally vibrant period (La Belle Époque
Belle Époque

The Belle ?poque was a period in history of Europe that began during the late 19th century and lasted until World War I. Occurring during the time of the French Third Republic and the German Empire, the "Belle ?poque" was named in retrospect, when it began to be considered a "golden age" for the upper classes, as peace prevailed among the m...
 at the turn of the 20th century), and of anticipative excitement about, or despair facing, impending change, or both, that is generally expected when a century
Century

A century is one hundred consecutive years.Centuries are numbered names of numbers in English#Ordinal_numbers in English and many other languages ....
 or time period draws to a close. In Russia, the term Silver Age
Silver Age of Russian Poetry

Silver Age is a term traditionally applied by Russian philologists to the first two decades of the 20th century. It was an exceptionally creative period in the history of Russian poetry, on par with the Golden Age of Russian Poetry a century earlier....
 is somewhat more popular.

That the expression is in French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
 probably comes from the fact that the fin de siècle is particularly associated with certain late 19th-century French-speaking circles in Paris
Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
 and Brussels
Brussels

Brussels , officially the Brussels Capital-Region, is the de facto capital city of the European Union and the largest urban area in Belgium....
, exemplified by artist
Artist

The definition of an artist is wide-ranging and covers a broad spectrum of activities to do with creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art....
s like Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé

St?phane Mallarm? , whose real name was ?tienne Mallarm?, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French Symbolism poet, and his work antecipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism ....
, movements like Symbolism
Symbolism (arts)

Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French and Belgium origin in symbolist poetry and other arts....
, and works of art like Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish people playwright, Irish poetry and author of numerous short stories and one novel. Known for his biting wit, he became one of the most successful playwrights of the late Victorian era in London, and one of the greatest Celebrity of his day....
's Salomé
Salome (play)

Salome is a tragedy by Oscar Wilde.The original 1891 version of the play was in French language. Three years later an English translation was published....
 (originally written in French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
 and premiere
Premiere

A premiere is generally "a first performance." This can refer to dramas, films, television programs, and so on. Premieres for theatrical, musical and other cultural presentations can become extravagant affairs, attracting large numbers of socialites and much Mass media attention....
d in Paris
Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
)—which connects the idea of the fin de siècle also to the Aesthetic movement. Also, Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch was a Norway Symbolism Painting, printmaker, and an important forerunner of Expressionism. His best-known composition, The Scream is one of the pieces in a series titled The Frieze of Life, in which Munch explored the themes of life, love, fear, death, and melancholy....
 spent some of his time in Paris around the turn-of-the-century, which was his most melancholy period.

Broader sense

In a broader sense the expression fin de siècle is used to characterise anything that has an ominous
Omen

An omen is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future, often signifying the advent of change. Omens may be considered "good" or "bad", but the term is more often used in a foreboding sense, as with the word "ominous"....
 mixture of opulence and/or decadence, combined with a shared prospect of unavoidable radical change or some approaching "end."

It is not change itself that is implied in the expression fin de siècle, but its anticipation
Anticipation

Anticipation can refer to:* Forethought* Anticipation , a 1971 album by Carly Simon.* Anticipation , the title track of this album.* Anticipation , the concept of an agent making decisions...
. For example, for the 19th-century fin de siècle, the most radical changes to the cultural and social order occurred more than a decade after the new century had started (most notably as a result of World War I
World War I

World War I, or the First World War , was a global military conflict which involved the Great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War I and the Central Powers....
). The Belle Époque
Belle Époque

The Belle ?poque was a period in history of Europe that began during the late 19th century and lasted until World War I. Occurring during the time of the French Third Republic and the German Empire, the "Belle ?poque" was named in retrospect, when it began to be considered a "golden age" for the upper classes, as peace prevailed among the m...
 was not even at its height in 1900, nor had the Edwardian era (almost seamlessly following the Victorian era
Victorian era

The Victorian Era of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the period of Victoria of the United Kingdom reign from June 1837 to January 1901....
) even started.

A more recent example of fin de siècle can be found in the Y2K problem: the general turmoil caused by this in itself relatively insignificant technical issue becomes much more understandable when an underlying fin de siècle mechanism is acknowledged. Many other 20th-century phenomena, e.g. New Age
New Age

New Age is a decentralized western culture social movement and new religious movement that seeks universality Truth and the attainment of the highest individual human potential....
, could be interpreted as building on at least some fin de siècle ideas.

Further reading

  • A reference text regarding the 19th century fin de siècle is Barbara Tuchman's The Proud Tower
    The Proud Tower

    The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 is a 1966 book by Barbara Tuchman, collecting essays she had published in various periodicals during the mid 1960s....
    .
  • A reference text regarding the 19th century fin de siècle in Vienna is Carl Schorske
    Carl E. Schorske

    Carl Emil Schorske is an American cultural historian and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. In 1981 he won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for his book Fin-de-Si?cle Vienna: Politics and Culture , which remains highly significant to modern European intellectual history....
    's Fin-de-Siècle Vienna.
  • Sally Ledger's exploration of women at the fin de siecle. The New Woman: Fiction and feminism at the fin de siecle (1997)


See also

  • Old Timeyness
  • Turn of the century
    Turn of the century

    Turn of the century, in its broadest sense, refers to the transition from one century to another. The term is most often used to indicate a non-specific time period either before or after the beginning of a century - for instance, if a statement describes an event as taking place "at the turn of the 18th century", this means it took place s...


External links

  • Ashe Journal
    Ashé Journal

    Ash? Journal is a peer-reviewed publication examining experimental spirituality....
     Special on the Fin de Siecle.