What does fin de siècle mean?

Fin de siècle is a term used to characterize the decade of the 1890's. The phrase is French and means "the end of the century." Fin-de-siècle writers and artists rejected the Victorian tradition and tried to find new methods and aims for their work. They believed that a work of art should be valued for its own sake, rather than for its moral point. The "decadent" poets, such as Charles Baudelaire and Oscar Wilde, were particularly fascinated by the strange beauty of death and decay. Another fin-de-siècle literary current was the Realistic movement, as illustrated by the plays of George Bernard Shaw.