Decadences: Morality and Aesthetics in British Literature

by Paul Fox (Editor)

Overview

This volume follows shifting conceptions of decadence in art and society at various moments in British literature. The decline from a higher standard, social malaise, aesthetic ennui—all of these ideas presume certain facts about the past, the present, and time's linear nature. To reject the past as a given and to relish the subtleties of present nuance is the beginning of decadence. This study explores the inherent conflict between society's moral contempt toward purportedly decadent artists and the artist's belief that the stranglehold society maintained on individual interpretation was true decadence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783898215732
Publisher:	ibidem-Verlag Haunschild / Schoen GbR
Publication date:	05/28/2006
Series:	Studies in English Literatures Series , #2
Pages:	412
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.92(d)

About the Author

Paul Fox (Ph.D. University of Georgia) is an Associate Professor at East Georgia College. He has published articles upon fin-de-siècle aesthetics, Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde and J. M. Barrie. He is currently completing a book-length study of Decadence and aesthetic time.

Table of Contents

Preface Paul Fox ix

Containing the Poisonous Text: Decadent Readers, Reading Decadence Shafquat Towheed 1

Arthur Symons" Decadent Aesthetics: Stéphane Mallarmé and the Dancer Revisited Petra Dierkes-Thrun 29

Cultural Decline and Alienation in Vernon Lee's "Prince Alberic and the Snake Lady" Peter G. Christensen 59

A Decadent Discord: George Egerton Sarah E. Maier 85

Gratifying a Divine Instinct: Sarah Stickney Ellis on Pleasure-Seeking and Feminine Morals Ashley Carlson 111

"Lifeless, inane, dawdling": Decadence, Femininity and Olive Schreiner's Woman and Labour Ewa Macura 135

The Perversion of Decadence: The Cases of Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray and Salome Bonnie J. Robinson 165

A Moment's Fixation: Aesthetic Time and Dialectical Progress Paul Fox 185

Decadence in Post-Colonial British Dystopias James Whitlark 209

"Lascivious Dialect": Decadent Rhetoric and the Early-Modern Pornographer Eric Langley 231

Dandies, Libertines, and Byronic Lovers: Pornography and Erotic Decadence in Nineteenth- Century England Deborah Lutz 257

Sexual Literary Freedom vs. Societal Hypocrisy and Ignorance: Aleister Crowley and the Artistic Challenge Michael R. Catanzaro 279

Discourse of Pathology and the Vitalistic Desire for Unity in Lawrence Durrell's The Black Book Ann-Catherine Nabholz 303

The Obscure Camera: Decadence and Moral Anxiety in Christopher Tsherwood's Goodbye to Berlin Heather Marcovitch 327

Permissive Paradise: The Fiction of Swinging London Nick Freeman 349

Beowulf: Always Already Decadent James Whitlark 375

Derek Mahon: "A decadent who lived to tell the story" Brian Burton 391

Contributors 411

Editorial Reviews

The vigorous endurance of fin-de-siècle ideas is apparent in this welcome collection of fifteen essays. [...] This collection shows that Decadent studies are in no danger of decline.

1880-1920 English Literature in Transition