Publisher's Synopsis
This book offers a new theory of avant-gardism based on recent developments in the philosophy of intellectual history.;The first section examines - on both theoretical and methodological grounds - current theories of avant-gardism, focusing on the work of Renato Poggioli and Peter Burger. In their place, an alternative theory is outlined which attempts to establish the intellectual conditions which make avant-garde activities possible, based on the claim that avant-garde politics are culturally and historically specific.;This theory is used to establish the conditions for avant-garde activity in late 19th-century Britain: particularly, the intellectual changes which took place in political economy, historiography and sociology - changes which, by problematizing concepts of history and society, both made British avant-garde activity possible and determined the forms it took.;The second section of the book examines the subversive politics, and hence, avant-gardism, in the work of Walter Pater, William Morris and Oscar Wilde, In this section, the focus is placed on the connections between literary and artistic practices and intellectual culture.
