Fictions of British decadence : high art, popular writing, and the fin de siècle / Kirsten MacLeod.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

MacLeod, Kirsten, 1969-

Series:

Palgrave studies in nineteenth-century writing and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English fiction--19th century--History and criticism.

English fiction.

Decadence (Literary movement)--Great Britain.

Decadence (Literary movement).

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

ix, 222 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Basingstoke [England] ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

Summary:

Fictions of British Decadence is a fresh account of the emergence, development, and legacy of fiction written in the era of Oscar Wilde. It examines a broad range of texts by a diverse array of Decadent writers, from familiar faces such as Ernest Dowson and John Davidson, to lesser-known innovators such as Arthur Machen and M.P. Shiel. New research illuminates the relationship between the Decadents and such popular writers as George Moore, Vernon Lee (Violet Paget), Marie Corelli, and Sarah Grand. This research also challenges myths about the Decadents. It describes how this so-called tragic generation pursued their artistic aspirations in the literary marketplace, created an art form that was more popular than avant-garde, sought both literary and commercial success, and negotiated the transition from the Victorian triple-decker to experimental Modernist fiction. MacLeod fills a large gap in our knowledge of a pivotal but misunderstood literary and cultural movement.

Contents:

The French origins of British Decadence 1

Decadence in Britain 2

Mythologizing British Decadence 7

The 'tragic generation' 8

Decadence as high art 10

Class myths of Decadence: bohemians and aristocratic dandies 12

Demythologizing British Decadence 13

Reading British Decadence a rebours 16

Fictions of British Decadence 18

1 The Mystified Class Origins of Decadence 21

Professionals vs capitalists in the mid-Victorian period 23

The emergence of the Decadent sensibility 26

2 Decadent Positionings: Decadence and the Literary Field 38

The battle for cultural authority in the fin-de-siecle literary field 39

'Other' Decadent role models: George Meredith and Robert Louis Stevenson 47

Paving the way for Decadence: publishers of Decadence 50

3 The Birth of the Decadent in Fiction, 1884-89 57

Aestheticism, Naturalism, and the emergence of Decadence 58

The Decadent Aesthete, aestheticized Naturalism, and Vernon Lee's Miss Brown 60

George Moore's ur-texts of Decadence: Confessions of a Young Man and Mike Fletcher 66

4 Writing Against Decadence, 1890-97 78

'Delighting in dirtiness and confessing its delight': the reception of The Picture of Dorian Gray 79

Women writing against Decadence 83

Marie Corelli's Wormwood: a counter-Decadent discourse? 85

The Beth Book and the 'Grand' stand against Decadence 90

5 Decadent Fiction Before the Keynotes Series 99

Robert Hichens's 'The Collaborators': a model for Decadent literary production 101

A real-life collaboration: Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore's Comedy of Masks 104

Collaboration or interference? John Davidson's North Wall 110

6 'Keynotes' of Decadence, 1894-95 116

Defining the keynotes of Decadence: Perfecting the counter-Decadent discourse 117

Arthur Machen's Great God Pan and Decadent pan(ic) 119

Transcending genre: high/low collaboration in M. P. Shiel's Prince Zaleski 128

7 Decadence in the Shadow of the Wilde Trials and Beyond 135

The swan song of Decadence: Arthur Machen's Hill of Dreams 135

Decadence, Decadents and the literary field in the shadow of the Wilde trials 138

Decadence and the Edwardian and Modernist literary fields 144

8 The Afterlife of the Decadents or, Life After Decadence 149

Ernest Dowson (1867-1900): The 'Dowson legend' as 'fiction of Decadence' 150

John Davidson (1857-1909): a Decadent malgre lui 154

Arthur Machen (1863-1947): the difficult Decadent 159

M. P. Shiel (1865-1947): the mediating Decadent 164.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-214) and index.

ISBN:

1403999082

OCLC:

62593807

Publisher Number:

978140399085 (hbk.)

9781403999085

Online:

Publisher description