Nordau's major work Entartung (Degeneration), is a moralistic attack on so-called degenerate art, as well as a polemic against the effects of a range of the rising social phenomena of the period, such as rapid urbanization and its perceived effects on the human body.
This work is cited by William James in his lecture on Neurology and Religion at the beginning of The Varieties of Religious Experience (footnote 4). James mocks the author on the grounds that he exemplifies the then current school of medical materialism, stating that Nordau "has striven to impugn the value of works of genius in a wholesale way (such works of contemporary art, namely, as he himself is unable to enjoy, and they are many) by using medical arguments."
Read more about this topic: Max Nordau
Famous quotes containing the word degeneration:
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