Decadence : a very short introduction / David Weir.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Weir, David, 1947 April 20- author.

Series:

Very short introductions

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Degeneration--Social aspects--History.

Degeneration.

Moral conditions--History.

Moral conditions.

Intellectual life--History.

Intellectual life.

History.

Civilization--History.

Civilization.

Social aspects.

Physical Description:

132 pages ; 18 cm.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2018]

Summary:

The historical trajectory of decadent culture runs from ancient Rome, to nineteenth-century Paris, Victorian London, fin de siecle Vienna, Weimar Berlin, and beyond. The first of these, the decline of Rome, provides the pattern for both aesthetic and social decadence, a pattern that artists and writers in the nineteenth century imitated, emulated, parodied, and otherwise manipulated for aesthetic gain. What begins as the moral condemnation of modernity in mid-nineteenth century France on the part of decadent authors such as Charles Baudelaire ends up as the perverse celebration of the pessimism that imperial decline, whether real or imagined, involves. This delight in decline informs the so-called breviary, or even bible, of decadence from Joris-Karl Huysmans's A Rebours, Oscar Wilde's 'The Picture of Dorian Gray', Aubrey Beardsley's drawings, Gustav Klimt's paintings, and numerous other works.

Contents:

Introduction

Rome: classical decadence

Paris: cultural decadence

London: social decadence

Vienna and Berlin: socio-cultural decadence

Afterword: legacies of decadence.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Weir, David, 1947 April 20- Decadence.

ISBN:

9780190610227

0190610220

OCLC:

983824597