Landscapes of Decadence
Literature and Place at the Fin de Siècle

This book explores the relationship between literary politics and the politics of place in fin-de-siècle travel and place-based literature.

Alex Murray (Author)

9781107169661, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 1 December 2016

235 pages
23.4 x 15.8 x 1.7 cm, 0.46 kg

'Murray understands 'Decadence' as a set of stylistic strategies aimed at challenging conventions by pushing them to the point of 'dissolution', and so distinguishes it from 'decadence' as the more general watchword for conservative reactions to cultural decline. Though the protests of decadence are many, Murray is primarily interested in the resistance it offers to traditional notions of place in an era of intensely nationalist thinking. … With this close attention to place, Murray highlights an important comparative dimension to decadence.' Robert Volpicelli, Modernism/modernity

The challenges posed by Decadence to Victorian moral conventions - particularly sexual - have been well documented, but this book makes the case for understanding Decadence as a response to the ways in which place was accorded moral value in the period. The book uses landscape as a key trope for exploring Decadent writing's approach to location and identity. Drawing on a wide range of fin-de-siècle literature organised around a series of locations from Naples to New York, Murray argues that Decadent writers developed a form of landscape and place-based writing using a series of stylistic features to challenge the increasing homogenisation of both place and literary culture. Decadence and the literature of the fin de siècle are re-framed as a politically-engaged form of landscape writing. This is an ambitious and richly researched study.

1. Landscapes of Decadence: reading sermons in stone
2. The disappearing ghosts of Naples
3. Paris and London, world-flowers twain
4. Stirring the Cumnor cowslips in Decadent Oxford
5. The glowing furnace of Decadent Wales
6. Venice, sans hope: reading Decadent New York.

Subject Areas: Literary theory [DSA], Literature: history & criticism [DS]