Literature and the Politics of Post-Victorian Decadence

This book explores the influence of the fin de siècle in early twentieth-century art and literature.

Kristin Mahoney (Author)

9781107109742, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 June 2015

272 pages, 21 b/w illus.
23.1 x 15 x 2.5 cm, 0.52 kg

'… a thoroughly engaging book, written with admirable clarity and nicely produced into the bargain.' Nick Freeman, Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies

In Literature and the Politics of Post-Victorian Decadence, Kristin Mahoney argues that the early twentieth century was a period in which the specters of the fin de siècle exercised a remarkable draw on the modern cultural imagination and troubled emergent avant-gardistes. These authors and artists refused to assimilate to the aesthetic and political ethos of the era, representing themselves instead as time travellers from the previous century for whom twentieth-century modernity was both baffling and disappointing. However, they did not turn entirely from the modern moment, but rather relied on decadent strategies to participate in conversations concerning the most highly vexed issues of the period including war, the rise of the Labour Party, the question of women's sexual freedom, and changing conceptions of sexual and gender identities.

1. 'Queer indifference': Max Beerbohm, post-Victorian decadence, and camp nostalgia
2. Pacifism and post-Victorian decadence: Vernon Lee at the margins of the twentieth century
3. Towards aristocracy: Baron Corvo and the Corvine society
4. Irish decadence, occultism, and sacrificial myth: the martyrdom of Althea Gyles
5. Crusading decadent: Beresford Egan, global dandyism, and post-Victorian decadent feminism.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF]