Decadence was a subject intensely discussed in Europe during the late nineteenth century. Degeneration was introduced as the dominant topic in this discussion, leading the attempt to define decadence and its causes. The particular emphasis placed on degeneration as the generating factor of decadence has been made well known due to the famous – or rather infamous – book by the German author Max Nordau, entitled Degeneration (Entartung, 1892). The book offers an overview of contemporary literature in the guise of a work of literary criticism. However, this supposed work of literary criticism is structured on the pattern Symptoms-Diagnosis-Aetiology-Prognosis-Therapeutics. Thus, the vocabulary used, which descends directly from Medicine, forms a structure that defines the progress of an illness. Therefore, what might seem as a text on the reception of Literature turns out to be a text on the examination of a Disease. As the medical discourse provides the formula upon which the literary discourse is patterned we observe the modelling of an inevitable equation: Literature equals Disease.

Max Nordau these days is mostly referred to as a journalist, a reference that overlooks the fact that he was also a medical practitioner. And it is in this capacity that he reads Literature in Degeneration. What we witness in Degeneration is a medical practitioner reading Literature; we witness Medicine reading Literature or, to be more precise, Medicine examining Literature. A number of aesthetic features also to be found in everyday life, such as dyed hair, bizarre coiffures, or an artistic life-style, are gathered to be submitted not to an aesthetic evaluation but to a thorough clinical examination. Points in aesthetic culture are being reduced to symptoms of pathology since, according to Nordau, ‘every single figure strives visibly by some singularity in outline, set, cut, or colour, to startle attention violently, and imperiously to detain it’.Reference Nordau¹ ‘Each one’, Nordau continues, ‘wishes to create a strong nervous excitement, no matter whether agreeably or disagreeably. The fixed idea is to produce an effect at any price’ (Ref. 1, pp. 9–10). Nordau attributes to aesthetics a symptomatic character based on its appeal to singularity, a quality that reaffirms the right to uniqueness and resists submission to a norm. Inculpating the tendency to stand out, Nordau inculpates the right to differ. Adopting the practices of a medical doctor, Nordau promotes the domination of the norm in constructing a system, a canon based on the medical value of the normal. Individuals are studied as cases that are acceptable in so far as they fulfil the laws of normalcy. If a figure or ‘case’, for that matter, transcends the law, he crosses over the border from sameness to otherness. That is also the border that separates Medicine from Literature.

This is better understood in phase two of the medical process of Nordau's literary criticism in which diagnosis is made on the basis of symptoms he has gathered in phase one. During this phase he distinguishes between the physician and the Other, the literary mind. Nordau confronts ‘the purely literary mind, whose merely aesthetic culture does not enable him to understand the connections of things, and to seize their real meaning, deceives himself and others as to his ignorance by means of sounding phrases, and loftily talks of a ‘restless quest of a new ideal by the modern spirit’, ‘the richer vibrations of the refined nervous system of the present day’, ‘the unknown sensations of an elect mind’ (Ref. 1, p. 15). While the physician hopes for a reason-based language strongly attached to reality, the literary mind seems to fail his expectation by engaging in a rhetoric with loose connections to actuality and mostly exploring new ways of transcending it. The physician, on the other hand, Nordau informs us,

While the confrontation of the physician and the literary mind starts as an issue of aesthetics and is basically defined as a counterargument at the level of rhetoric with the physician being bewildered by the language of the literary mind, it does not take long before the confrontation is transposed from aesthetics to ethics and from aesthetic signs to literary diseases. The transition from symptoms to diagnosis we have watched specifies the transition from aesthetics to literature and conceptualizes the reception of literature as a medical procedure that administers the evolution of aesthetic signs in literary phenomena. In this perspective, nervous excitement progresses from a sign of singularity as an aesthetic trend to degeneration and neurasthenia as the literary identity marking the quest for the unknown sensation and the intense vibration of the literary text. The perception of literature as an organized system of aesthetic signs that identifies with disease places literature in the position of the patient to be scanned for abnormalities and be diagnosed with degeneration and hysteria. Literature is recognized either to be breeding pathology within itself, a state called degeneration, or to be contracting degeneration to its public, a state called hysteria.

Nordau argues that degeneracy pervades society, gaining access to the latter through Art and Literature, which have already been contaminated. In this circle of contamination Nordau includes the Pre-Raphaelites, the Parnassians, the Symbolists, the Aesthetes and the Decadents, the Naturalists, Ibsen, Nietzsche and Tolstoy, to mention some carriers of the disease. If we take a closer look at this panoramic presentation that Nordau himself calls ‘a long and sorrowful wandering through the hospital’ (Ref. 1, p. 536), it is easy to observe that he includes all movements of the avant-garde that preceded Modernism.

M.P. Foster states that ‘Max Nordau was able to assemble in one book nearly all the elements and many of the personalities involved in modernism. His word for it, however, was not modernism, but degeneration.’Reference Foster² P.M. Baldwin is also right to suggest that to Nordau ‘fin-de-siècle did not just mean a preoccupation with one style rather than another. If allowed to continue, it meant the end of civilized life and Nordau suggested the term fin-de-race as a more accurate description’.Reference Baldwin³

The ability of Nordau to perceive the dynamic of the new movement along with his inability to comprehend it have been aptly presented by Baldwin, who recognizes Nordau's ‘impressive powers of observation’ in portraying the beginnings of modern culture, together with an ‘overly confident rationalist attitude that deceived him as to its importance’ (Ref. 3, p. 107). Baldwin talks about a ‘polemical hailstorm unleashed on modernist culture’, (Ref. 3, p. 99) adding however that Nordau's ‘pronouncements on the value and future appeal of various artists’ were ‘the judgements not of an uncomprehending philistine, but of a rationalist who, although aesthetically perceptive and often appreciative of degenerate art for exclusively artistic reasons, was repulsed by the moral and social tendencies which he thought found expression there’ (Ref. 3, p. 103). The allegation that Nordau accepted the aesthetics but rejected the morality of the fin-de-siècle fails to convince, however, because Nordau in 1895, three years after the publication of Degeneration, in the ‘Reply to his Critics’ still insists that ‘certain fashion tendencies of art are morbid’ and ‘they are rooted in the degenerateness of their inventors’.Reference Nordau⁴ In his ‘Reply’ his repulsion still holds strong against what he calls the ‘neo-mystic movement of our own times’ or ‘delirium-reeking literature and art of the present day’, which he defines by its ‘abnormal ideation’ (Ref. 4, p. 91). Nordau admits that the absence of ‘normal’ beauty and the longing for irritating curiosities insult his logic and morals as well as his taste (Ref. 4, p. 81), proving that his aversion towards the fin-de-siècle was both morally and aesthetically driven.

Nordau's statement provides evidence that his logic, morals and taste are offended by fin-de-siècle Literature and Art. Next we are going to study his view of degeneration in relation to these three elements. First of all, when Nordau reproaches contemporary literature and art for insulting his logic, he is actually reproaching them that they defy rationalism. In the confrontation of the physician and the literary object we have already seen the confrontation between literary and scientific rhetoric. We will now attempt to follow the transition of this confrontation from the level of rhetoric and aesthetics to the level of ethics.

Baldwin lays a special stress on Nordau's appeal to rationalism in relation to his view of degeneration as the ‘outcome of the tension he saw between the scientific conception of the world and existing society’ (Ref. 3, p. 106). Baldwin's point about Nordau's rationalistic opposition to the culture of the fin-de-siècle is established on the latter's liberal outlook. Based on a thorough study of Nordau's theoretical works Baldwin unfolds Nordau's liberal world view, which postulates that

Nordau's scientific focus echoes in the scientific jargon and in phrases like ‘eugenic advantage’ or the ‘ennobling of common man’, which display an aggressive attitude towards art. In reality, though, Nordau is reproaching art for not conforming to the social dominants he propounds. The social role he assigns to art consists of establishing social standards that begin with aesthetics and rhetoric, but thence proceed to the deeper level of ethics and morality. In this framework he treats beauty, the central issue of aesthetics, as a vehicle for normalcy, a social norm. ‘Ennobling the common man’, with the emphasis placed on the ‘common’ which has to be elevated, proposes another social norm, a social function performed at the level of politics, specifically the politics of Medicine towards people. In proposing an entire system of social norms that extends from aesthetics to ethics and politics, Medicine aspires to appropriate to itself the role that Literature has held so far, an issue to be discussed in the conclusion of the paper.

The role that Medicine for Nordau aspires to play in society can be highlighted through a closer look at its dialogue with aesthetics and politics. Aesthetics is the primary basis from which Nordau launches his attack against Literature, starting from an argument that sums up the three conditions for accepting Literature and Art:

• • firstly (not ‘solely’), the agreeable sensorial impression of beautiful colour-harmony;

• • secondly, an illusion of actuality and the pleasure attendant upon the recognition of the represented phenomenon;

• • thirdly, the perception of the emotions which prompted the artist to give prominence to certain features of the phenomenon […]. (Ref. 4, p. 88)

Nordau seems mainly preoccupied with the relation of literature to symmetry, which he sees as pointing in the direction of normalcy, and to representation as well as emotional expressiveness, which for Nordau point in the direction of actuality and literalism. The language Nordau is willing to accept in literature is a language defined by harmony and therefore symmetry, a language that equates word and meaning or signified and signifier in attaching one meaning to each word, and which is explicit in the perception of emotions, thus establishing a firm contact to reality. In essence, Nordau interprets the language of literature according to the rules of the scientific language he is so familiar with, that is to say a literal, rationalist language.

Nordau's appreciation of rationalism and literalism in language was strongly challenged by the rhetoric of the fin-de-siècle, which presented the phenomena of the world under a different light, or uncovered allusions of the mysteriously occult in the simplest word (Ref. 1, p. 43). The new literature feels to him registered in cryptic codes, keeping a mystery that resists easy access to meaning. In fact, he uses the term ‘neo-mysticist’ to define the fin-de-siècle movement in the ‘Reply to his Critics’ that we have seen earlier. The fin-de-siècle text presents him with a number of codes that require deciphering, an intuitive glance beyond the worldly phenomena. The term he uses to indicate the search behind the phenomena of the world is ‘mysticism’. To draw the definition of mysticism directly from the book: ‘The word describes a state of mind in which the subject imagines that he perceives or divines unknown and inexplicable relations amongst phenomena, discerns in things hints at mysteries, and regards them as symbols, by which a dark power seeks to unveil or, at least, to indicate all sorts of marvels which he endeavours to guess, though generally in vain’ (Ref. 1, p. 45). Although Nordau disapproves of mysticism in the fin-de-siècle poetics, he is apt in recognizing this mystic dimension in hidden meanings and inexplicable relations behind phenomena but most importantly in embodying these ‘hints at mysteries’ as symbols. What Nordau does is provide a most accurate definition of the Symbol as it was conceived by the Symbolist Movement and one cannot help but recognize how perceptive he is in understanding literary phenomena.

At the same time he is exceptionally perceptive when recognizing another phenomenon in the fin-de-siècle rhetoric, the phenomenon of discovering unknown meanings in known words, of establishing unknown relations among known phenomena: we now know that it is the rhetorical strategy called ‘metaphor’ that has been defined since the beginning of the twentieth century and Russian formalism as the distinctive feature of literature. For Nordau it is a transgression of the harmonious, symmetrical language that supplies one meaning for each word. While for fin-de-siècle aesthetics discovering multiple meanings behind words marked novelty, for Nordau the existence of multiple meanings detracted from clarity in the use of language, established the mysticism he objected to, and eventually marked the failure of writers to relate words to apparent phenomena. It is interesting to note how Nordau extends his argument from text to body and interprets the textual as biological failure when he postulates that the writers’ inability to adjust each word to a distinct specified meaning is owed to defective brain cells and failed organic functions.

Another characteristic of the fin-de-siècle mysticism is, according to Nordau, the use of techniques that obscure clear outlines to ‘procure new sense-impressions’ (Ref. 1, p. 59). We know now that this is the technique employed by impressionism to bring out the impressions created under the effect of light, or to command overall visual effects rather than details, lines or contours. For Nordau the blurring of clear lines signals weak organic activity, morbid nerve-centres and enfeebled nervous systems. In the same vein he attributes the trembling effect achieved by impressionist painters to their incapability of representation because of over-excited brain-cells (Ref. 1, p. 63–66).

Finally, an issue that recurs in Degeneration as well as in the ‘Reply to his Critics’ is the association of ideas, another rhetorical strategy widely acknowledged today in literature, which to Nordau is purely mechanical and betrays ‘defective idealism’ and ‘insufficient intellectual strength’. According to Nordau, ‘the association of ideas solely according to the similarity of sound of the words’ makes ‘little or no requisition upon the reasoning faculty’ (Ref. 4, p. 87). Nordau's statement reaffirms his appeal to reason contrary to sound in the use of words. His appeal to a rhetoric based on reason explains his discord with the new movements preferring a rhetoric rooted in intuition. However, Nordau extends the incompatibility he perceives on the level of aesthetics to the level of politics. Scientific or medical aesthetics thus are transformed into medical politics.

Issues that might appear to concern aesthetic or literary phenomena turn out to concern biological, and particularly mental, functions. From this perspective the three-point scheme we traced earlier constitutes an attempt to impose the normative mentality of the scientist on literary creation as it lays out a strict pattern of control over writers. In proposing his aesthetic standards for the assessment of literature, Nordau proposes in essence norms that address the mentality of writers. The aesthetic criteria he clings to become criteria for the evaluation of the normal and the abnormal. Given his overall theory it does not come as a surprise that Nordau opposes the mystic to the sane man, thus implying that there is a connection between insanity and (certain kinds of contemporary) literature, a connection confirmed by his statement about degeneracy as ‘a morbid deviation from an original type’ (Ref. 1, p. 16). In last instance, Nordau shifts pathology from the body of the text to the body of the writer when he goes on to present the mentally enfeebled artist or writer as sharing common features with criminals.

In conclusion, the irreconcilable differences Nordau finds to exist between the scientific and literary articulation of speech lead him to equate the artist/writer with a criminal when it comes to the level of morality. By strengthening the scientific in its juxtaposition to the literary/artistic modality, Nordau formulates a strictly organized argument that finally reveals an intention to dominate the speech articulation code and impose a uniformity of ethics on society. In this framework, the subject that resorts to literary forms of articulation, or that more generally uses artistic means of expression, is criticized and denigrated in favour of the subject who employs scientific – which in this case means medical – forms of articulation. Under the pretext of distinguishing between diverse speech genres, Nordau in fact marginalizes and ‘objectivises,’ to use Michel Foucault's vocabulary, the literary subject.Reference Foucault⁵ Indeed, in ‘The Subject and Power’ Foucault expounds on the objectivizing of the subject as a process of ‘dividing practices’ based on the separation of the mad from the sane, the sick from the healthy, the criminals from the ‘good boys’ (Ref. 5, p. 777–778).

The gradual transformation of the literary subject into an ‘object’ entails the subjection of a substantial source of social resistance to the hegemony of the scientific – in this case medical – subject. It implies, in fact, the silencing of an entire section of the learned community. It all leads, I think, to the conclusion that the alleged aesthetic confrontation of the two different modes of articulation conceals a struggle for dominance that starts in the field of speech but ends in the field of social power. Among the relationships of opposition Foucault lists we find that of the power of psychiatry over the mentally ill and of medicine over the population at large. Elaborating on these struggles Foucault insists that ‘the medical profession is not criticized primarily because it is a profit-making concern but because it exercises an uncontrolled power over people's bodies, their health, and their life and death’. One may conclude that Medicine as an emerging force at the end of the nineteenth century was seeking to reinforce its position in society by dethroning its most important opponent, Literature. The silencing of Literature, its already established opponent,Reference Hyder⁶ would secure Medicine's overall control over the speech of society. The basic value at stake here was power, and Max Nordau's Degeneration offers a vivid illustration of how Medicine aimed to seize control and re-align existing social relations.