Introduction: Decadence and Translation

Abstract

In recent years criticism has started to pay serious attention to the international dimensions of decadence. This has involved an effort to explore how decadent forms and themes manifest themselves differently in different geographical contexts, but also to grasp decadence as a transnational movement and as an endeavor to think on a world scale. Regenia Gagnier, for instance, has linked decadence to processes of economic and cultural globalization, while Matthew Potolsky has seen a continuity between the international networking strategies used by Enlightenment intellectuals connected with the so-called Republic of Letters and those employed by decadent authors starting from the second half of the nineteenth century. The latest English-language histories of the movement and companions to decadence reflect this international orientation. Even in the midst of this cosmopolitan turn, however, the specific role and status of translation have been largely overlooked. This special issue ofModern Philology seeks to recover the importance of translation in the circulation of decadence across