The Challenging Task of Making Decadence Boring
Thursday, October 19, 2023 - 08:00
Maybe I'm just not in the right headspace for this article. Maybe it simply isn't operating on my wavelength. But I found it incoherent and boring (and of only tenuous connection to either "literature" or "gay and lesbian"). Sorry about that.
I'll wrap up this book with another post that simply lists the chapters that I didn't cover due to falling entirely within the 20th century. Then on to something more interesting!
Major category:
Full citation:
Glick, ELisa. 2014. “Turn-of-the-Century Decadence and Aestheticism” in The Cambridge History of Gay and Lesbian Literature ed. E.L. McCallum & Mikko Tuhkanen. Cambridge University Press, New York. ISBN 978-1-107-03521-8
Publication summary:
A collection of articles meant as a critical reference work on literature across time and space that might be considered “gay and lesbian literature.” Only articles with lesbian-relevant content will be blogged in detail.
Part IV - Queer Modernisms; Chapter 18 - Turn-of-the-Century Decadence and Aestheticism
This chapter looks at two creative movements that intersected strongly with queer representation. Of these, the decadent movement was more pervasive. While centered in France, it was international in scope, while the aesthetic movement was primarily British. The author is interested in these movements in how they expressed the complexities and contradictions of developing “queer modernity.”
Unfortunately, in the middle of a self-indulgent dive into glorying in these complexities and contradictions, there isn’t really a coherent through-line in the article to summarize, and very little that relates directly to the concepts “gay and lesbian.”
View comments (0)