{"title":"Black Feathers and Poison Wine Decadent Aesthetics in Davíð Stefánsson’s Poetry","authors":"Karólína Rós Ólafsdóttir","doi":"10.36253/lea-1824-484x-15114","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Davíð Stefánsson (1895-1964) is a poet whose work marks a turning point in early twentieth-century Icelandic literature. This essay offers five new English translations from his first collection Black Feathers (Svartar Fjaðrir,1919) and introduces a new decadent perspective. Decadence is widely regarded as flourishing in emergent modern societies, but, as this essay shows, its influence extended beyond western Europe. Written in a remote place, Stefánsson’s decadence speaks to an aesthetic of emptiness and atemporality. These poems broaden our conception of decadence and evidence a rich cultural hybridity, showing the influence of various traditions including symbolism, the Gothic, folk-songs, and decadence.","PeriodicalId":383989,"journal":{"name":"LEA - Lingue e Letterature d'Oriente e d'Occidente","volume":" 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"LEA - Lingue e Letterature d'Oriente e d'Occidente","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.36253/lea-1824-484x-15114","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Davíð Stefánsson (1895-1964) is a poet whose work marks a turning point in early twentieth-century Icelandic literature. This essay offers five new English translations from his first collection Black Feathers (Svartar Fjaðrir,1919) and introduces a new decadent perspective. Decadence is widely regarded as flourishing in emergent modern societies, but, as this essay shows, its influence extended beyond western Europe. Written in a remote place, Stefánsson’s decadence speaks to an aesthetic of emptiness and atemporality. These poems broaden our conception of decadence and evidence a rich cultural hybridity, showing the influence of various traditions including symbolism, the Gothic, folk-songs, and decadence.