SOURCE: “‘Indifferentism’ in the Early Fiction of Max Brod: The Representation of Decadence in the Prague Circle,” in The International Fiction Review, Vol. 11, No. 1, Winter, 1984, pp. 47-50.

In the following essay, Habermann discusses Brod's representations of decadence in his early fiction.

Despite a growing interest in the cultural phenomenon of decadence, the notion as a specific aesthetic quality has largely remained mystified by clichés and labels since its emergence in mid-nineteenth-century France. Decadence has yet to be accepted as a representation of social discourse, each variant changing according to its sociohistorical presuppositions. The meaning of the concept has adapted to each distinct Zeitgeist. This in turn caused transformations of the term and its interpretation, as well as migrations across national boundaries. Therefore, the various concepts of decadence should be considered as paradigms of communicability by which specific communities identify and justify themselves and their time. In this...