12 - Schopenhauer according to the Symbolists: the philosophical roots of late nineteenth-century French aesthetic theory

Summary

The future belongs to Decadism. Born of the world-weariness of a Schopenhauerian civilization, the Decadents' … mission … [is] to … demolish the old order and prepare the embryonic elements of the great national literature of the twentieth century.

Le Decadent, 1890

INTRODUCTION

Almost all the painters, writers and critics of the late nineteenth century in France frequently mentioned the influence of Schopenhauer on their ideas. Every literary critic and art historian writing on the period today associates the Symbolists with Schopenhauer. Yet it is difficult to assess exactly – since no hard evidence is ever offered by either group – to what extent they read him, what they read of his work, and, in any detail, which ideas they borrowed. Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation, was, when it appeared in 1818 (publication date 1819), hardly read in France but became the rage among Symbolists and Decadents in the eighties and nineties after the translation of his work by among others, Theodule Ribot in his 1874 commentary La Philosophie de Schopenhauer, and by a later edition of fragments translated by Jean Bourdeau which came out in 1880 entitled Pensées, Maximes et Fragments, as well as a second edition of Ribot's work in 1885. In 1888, given the work's popularity, WWR was again translated into French.