ENGL 420(S) Decadence and Aestheticism
"Fin de Siecle": the end of the world, or at least the end of century, was the cry of
many in the last years of the 19th century. Despair over the seeming perilous
decline in moral standards, scandalously avant-garde fashions in art and writing,
anxieties brought on by Britain's uneasy rule over its colonies, and the advent of
new dissident sexual and social identities, led some to fear (and others to celebrate) that the ways of Victorian Britain were not long for this world. This course
will consider aestheticism and decadence as late-nineteenth-century literary and
artistic responses, both scandalized and scandalizing, to this terrifying and exhilarating period. We'll read writers such as Oscar Wilde, who reveled in amoral
manifestos like "art for art's sake" by elevating artifice and shallowness to the
first principles of life, both in his work and through his own outré existence. In
addition to reading Wilde and his fellow aesthetes, we'll think about the ways in
which nineteenth-century literary forms, such as the detective novel, work both
to contain and diffuse the many anxieties of the fin de siècle. Throughout, we'll
seek to understand the relays between the aesthetic and social dimensions of
these works. This seminar will involve intense discussion and independent
work, will familiarize students with the terrain of current theory and critical
work on Victorian culture, as well as build skills in researching criticism and developing arguments. Authors likely to include: Eliot, Kipling, Stevenson, Stoker, Doyle, Schreiner, Wilde, Wells, Conrad, James.
Format: seminar/discussion. Requirements: productive discussion; written work
culminating in a 20-page research paper.
Prerequisites: a 300-level course or permission of the instructor. Enrollment limit: 15 (expected:10). Preference given to junior and senior English majors.
(1700-1900)