Nordic Literature of Decadence fills a gap on the map of world literature and participates in a thriving area of research by extending the investigation of broadly understood fin de si-e decadence to unexplored areas of Nordic literature, which remain practically unknown to Anglophone audiences. In the Nordic countries the new Parisian movements were seen as having caused a malicious invasion, a -black flood- that was spreading over the North destroying the very foundations of Nordic national cultures. Nevertheless, the appeal of this controversial movement was irresistible to discontents and innovators, even in countries where the old moral, religious and nationalist atmosphere still retained its stranglehold and modern urban, industrial and social developments lagged behind that of the metropoles breeding this new literature and art.
The Nordic countries developed their own distinctive manifestations of decadence favouring allegorical and al
