Wilde, Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills (1854-1900)
Oscar Wilde was an Irish playwright, essayist, author and poet, and one of Victorian England’s chief proponents of Aestheticism. His works are often characterised by…
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Cravan, Arthur (1887–1918)
Born Fabian Avernius Lloyd in Lausanne, Switzerland to expatriate English parents, Arthur Cravan was a self-styled ‘poet-pugilist,’ nephew of Oscar Wilde, and husband of British…
Decadence
Decadence was a word used to refer, often disparagingly, to late-19th-century European writers and artists whose credo of ‘‘art for art’s sake’’ (Dictionary of Art…
Symbolism Overview
Symbolism is a late-nineteenth-century literary movement centred mostly around the work of poets such as Stéphane Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Philippe Villiers de L’Isle-Adam,…
Aestheticism
Aestheticism refers to a late-Victorian tendency to argue that art is its own justification and should therefore be judged by purely aesthetic criteria. Closely related…
Yellow Book, The
The Yellow Book was a London-based literary quarterly, published from 1894 to 1897 by Elkin Matthews and John Lane, which served to promote the work…
Chukovsky, Kornei Ivanovich (ЧУКОВСКИЙ, КОРНЕЙ ИВАНОВИЧ) (1882–1969)
Born Nikolai Vasil’evich Korneichukov, Chukovsky was a renowned writer, critic, and translator. He was born in St. Petersburg but moved to Odessa at the age…
Pater, Walter (1839–1894)
Walter Pater was a man of letters and art critic associated with the Art for Art’s Sake movement. Pater was a notably quiet Oxford don.…
Geijutsu-za
The first iteration of the Geijutsu-za (Art Theater) was founded in 1913 by the actors Shimamura Hōgetsu (1871–1918) and Matsui Sumako (1886–1919) after they were…
Manto, Saadat Hasan وسعادت حسن منٹ (1912–1955)
Saadat Hasan Manto is one of the foremost writers of the Indian subcontinent in Urdu, and, by common consent, the most accomplished practitioner of the…
Crowley, Aleister (1875–1947)
Aleister Crowley was an occultist, writer, and mystic who founded the spiritual philosophy of Thelema. Crowley’s work combines European, South Asian, and Chinese esoteric teachings.…
Archer, William (1856–1924)
Born in Edinburgh, William Archer served as a London theater critic from 1881 to 1920. He retired from weekly reviewing when his melodrama The Green…
Symonds, John Addington (1840–1893)
John Addington Symonds was an English historian, biographer and poet best known for his writings on sexuality. Though Symonds’s father was a well-known physician and…
Matsui, Sumako (1886–1919)
Matsui Sumako was the first superstar shingeki actress in Japan’s modernist theater movement.
Reinhardt, Max (1873–1943)
Born Max Goldmann to Jewish parents in Baden, Austria and nicknamed “the Magician” by the press, Max Reinhardt was pivotal in establishing theater directing as…
Literary Agents
Despite early resistance from publishers such as William Heinemann, the expansion of British and American literary markets between 1880 and World War I rendered the…
Kawakami, Sadayakko (1871–1946)
Sadayakko (also sometimes transliterated Sada Yakko or Sada Yacco) was Japan’s first modern actress, a pioneer of Western drama in Japan and one of the…
Beardsley, Aubrey Vincent (1872–1898)
Aubrey Beardsley was an English illustrator of the late Victorian period. His fluid, sinuous illustrations were influenced by Japanese prints and by the curvilinear Art…
Brenner, Yosef Hayim (1881–1921)
Yosef Hayim Brenner was born in 1881 in Novi Mlini, in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine). Like many Hebrew and Yiddish writers of his generation,…
Bharati, Dharamvir (1926–1997)
Dharamvir Bharati was one of the most versatile literary figures of modern Hindi Literature in independent India. Born on 25 December, 1926 in a Kayastha…
Winfield, Hemsley (1907–1934)
An early initiator of Black modern dance, Hemsley Winfield first gained recognition as an actor and director of the New Negro Art Theater in New…
Fin de siècle
Referring to the end of the 19th century, Fin de siècle not only represents a specific historical moment but also a part of the sensibility…
Art Nouveau
From the 1880s until the mid-1910s, Art Nouveau was the dominant style in art, architecture, and design in Europe, with innovative and thoroughly modern production…
Nietzsche, Friedrich (1844–1900)
Friedrich Nietzsche, the son of a Lutheran minister, was a German philologist, philosopher, and iconoclast. He is best known for his controversial but powerful reevaluation…
Zhou Zuoren (周作人) (1885–1967)
A writer and critic in the New Culture Movement (新文化运动), Zhou Zuoren was one of the most prominent literary figures in the early twentieth century…