I suggest you look it up on Wikipedia.com or something, but have you seen MOULIN ROUGE?
Bohemia is actually a historical region in central Europe; it used to be its own country, but is now part of the Czech Republic (if you've read Shakespeare's THE WINTER'S TALE, you'll remember that the character Polixenes is King of Bohemia -- Shakespeare has Perdita abandoned by the shores of Bohemia, which is funny because Bohemia was a landlocked country).
However, in 19th-century France the term "Bohemia" and "Bohemians" became used to refer to the type of poor, non-traditional artists and social outcasts (usually the ones who drank absinthe and talked about love and liberty). The term was coined from the common belief that the gypsies were originally from Bohemia.
So generally, "Bohemian" refers to unconventional "struggling" artists while "Bohemia" refers to their lifestyle and culture. When Benny says, "Bohemia is dead," he is saying that the idea of the romanticized, misunderstood artist living in poverty and creating art is a dead one.
BlueWizard's blog: The Rambling Corner
HEDWIG: "The road is my home. In reflecting upon the people whom I have come upon in my travels, I cannot help but think of the people who have come upon me."
Updated On: 12/30/04 at 07:40 PM
