Revolution and Decadence in the Poetic Universe of Gustav Suits

Abstract

In Estonia, Gustav Suits (1883–1956) is the first name to be associated with nationalism and literary innovation at the beginning of the twentieth century. This article will analyse his early poetry in connection with his political activities. Suits was the initiator of the Young Estonia movement [Noor-Eesti] (1905–1915) that focused on aesthetic innovation and brought into Estonian literature many new features that have been associated with decadent style. As John R. Reed has remarked, it is important to make a distinction between decadent style and decadent manner, because the former is a ‘verifiable technique’, while the latter is a loose combination of ‘idealistic yearning’ and ‘trappings’.[i] Although decadent style became more and more dominant in Suits’s poetry, decadent manner is notably missing – Suits obviously had no intention of épater le bourgeois with dirty details or perverse imagination.

[i] See John R. Reed’s oft-quoted description of decadent style, in Decadent Style (Ohio University Press, 1988), p. 116.