In the 1890’s, many realists became naturalists, a term created by Emile Zola. For them realism was an ideology and the novel had the power to become a political weapon. Crane had the view that life and death are determined by fate. He wrote about a man who said to the Universe “Sir, I exist! “
“However,” replied the Universe “The fact has not created in me a sense of obligation”.
Thanks to modern psychology and writers like Henry James, we are now more interested in the working of the human mind. We know that events inside one’s head can be as dramatic as events in the outside world.
Adams is best remembered for his “St Michel and Chartres”. On the surface it is a guidebook to two famous French religious sites. However, it is a deep study of medieval culture. The old Europe had a calm unity; the new culture of America, however, had neither calmness nor unity. One of Adam’s finest quotes was; “Chaos is the Law of nature, order, the dream of man”.
Meanwhile in Europe at the turn of the 19th century, hypocrisy was the cement that kept the society together, cumulating in a nostalgic enjoying of decay that regretted only the loss of sexual opportunities. Art Nouveau wanted to bring the heaven to earth, but created only artificial paradises separated from the cities, hidden under their streets or on elevations above them. They were closed reservations of esoteric symbolism and pseudo-ritualism; the idioms of a retreat in the inner self.
The painting “Trismegisturian Harlequins” (Picasso 1901 -1905) portrayed the neglected offspring of Hermes. Because evolution in art or science is often the result of disrespect and revolt, they were punished with social exclusion for their diverging talents. Simmel and Durkheim considered that the collective always cannibalizes the individuality till it becomes socially acceptable. Freud declared in 1906 that the masochistic satisfaction that people experience when a theatre character suffers on stage, originates from the primitive offer rites who suppressed the impulse to revolt. He also stated that love is no remedy against war because sex and death aren’t enemies but clandestine collaborators.
The Maharajagar 