Description
Book SynopsisHow did this vagabond word, bohemia, migrate across national borderlines over the course of the nineteenth century, and what happened to it as it traveled? In International Bohemia, Daniel Cottom studies how various individuals and groups appropriated this word to serve the identities, passions, cultural forms, politics, and histories they sought to animate. Beginning with the invention of bohemianism''s modern sense in Paris during the 1830s and 1840s, Cottom traces the twists and turns of this phenomenon through the rest of the nineteenth century and into the early years of the twentieth century in the United States, England, Italy, Spain, and Germany.
Even when they traveled under the banner of l''art pour l''art, the bohemians of this era generally saw little reason to observe borderlines between their lives and their art. On the contrary, they were eager to mix up the one with the other, despite the fact that their critics often reproached them on this
Trade Review
"Polished, eloquent, and witty, International Bohemia is a spectacular achievement, a truly profound exploration of the mobile and ever shape-shifting phenomenon known as la vie bohème." * Joanna Levin, Chapman University *
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1. Bohemian Poseur Jew
Chapter 2. Maggie, Not a Girl of the Streets
Chapter 3. The Indignity of Labor
Chapter 4. Unknowing Privat
Chapter 5. America, the Birthplace of Bohemia
Chapter 6. The Poverty of Nations
Chapter 7. Sherlock Holmes Meets Dracula
Conclusion
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
