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'Lane, you're a perfect pessimist': pessimism and the English Fin de siecle.(a line in Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being Ernest)(Critical essay)

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From: Yearbook of English Studies
Date: 20070101
Author:Shrimpton, Nicholas

ABSTRACT

Was pessimism a significant influence on late nineteenth-century English writing? The conventional answer, suggested by R. H.Goodale's classic article of 1932, is that its effect was marginal. This essay argues that the debate between pessimism and optimism profoundly affected fin de siecle literary culture. The last of three successive waves of European pessimism, prompted by the delayed discovery of Schopenhauer, coincided with a widespread disillusionment with the optimistic claims of positivism. Plays, poems, and novels reflected the assumptions of pessimist ...

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