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Extraordinary Aesthetes
Decadents, New Women, and Fin-de-Siècle Culture
Joseph Bristow (Edited by)
9781487546083
Hardback, published 12 April 2023
394 pages, 48 colour illustrations, 4 b&w illustrations
23.5 x 15.9 x 3.8 cm, 0.74 kg
"[Extraordinary Aesthetes] is rich in material and interpretation and introduces the reader to aspects of cultural and literary life at the end of the nineteenth century, which will certainly enrich any previous studies and encourage further reading. Bristow’s mission to extend and transform his cited key texts is successfully achieved." - Miriam al Jamil (The Wildean)
The fin de siècle not only designated the end of the Victorian epoch but also marked a significant turn towards modernism. Extraordinary Aesthetes critically examines literary and visual artists from England, Ireland, and Scotland whose careers in poetry, fiction, and illustration flourished during the concluding years of the nineteenth century. This collection draws special attention to the exceptional contributions that artists, poets, and novelists made to the cultural world of the late 1880s and 1890s. The essays illuminate a range of established, increasingly acknowledged, and lesser-known figures whose contributions to this brief but remarkably intense cultural period warrant close attention. Such figures include the critically neglected Mabel Dearmer, whose stunning illustrations appear in Evelyn Sharp’s radical fairy tales for children. Equally noteworthy is the uncompromising short fiction of Ella D’Arcy, who played a pivotal role in editing the most famous journal of the 1890s, The Yellow Book. The discussion extends to a range of legendary writers, including Max Beerbohm, Oscar Wilde, and W.B. Yeats, whose works are placed in dialogue with authors who gained prominence during this period. Bringing women’s writing to the fore, Extraordinary Aesthetes rebalances the achievements of artists and writers during the rapidly transforming cultural world of the fin de siècle.
List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Part One: New Women, Female Aesthetes, and the Emergence of Decadence 1. Impressionistic Photography and the flâneuse in Amy Levy’s Romance of a Shop 2. The Decay of Marriage in Ella D’Arcy’s Decadent New Woman Fiction 3. Mabel Dearmer’s Decadent Way Part Two: Femininity, Masculinity, and Fin-de-Siècle Aesthetics 4. "So much too little": Alice Meynell, Walter Pater, and the Question of Influence 5. Richard Le Gallienne and the Rhymers: Masculine Minority in the 1890s 6. Max Beerbohm’s "Improved" Intentions by Oscar Wilde: The Aesthetics of Cosmesis Part Three: Women, Babies, Moons – 1890s Poetics 7. Dollie Radford and the Case of the Disappearing Babies 8. "She hath no air": Mary Coleridge’s Moon Part Four: Aestheticism, Decadence, and the Modern Age 9. Radical Empathy in Dora Sigerson’s Fairy Changeling and Broadside Poems of 1916–17 10. The Boom in Yellow: The Afterlife of the 1890s Contributors Index
Joseph Bristow
S. Brooke Cameron
Kate Krueger
Diana Maltz
Beth Newman
Emily Harrington
Megan Becker
Julie Wise
Kasey Bass
So Young Park
Kristin Mahoney