Decadence and the Senses

Jane Desmarais; Alice Condé

Decadence and the Senses

Edited by Jane Desmarais and Alice Condé

Click cover to enlarge

Buy hardback at:
Amazon
Amazon US

Buy paperback at:
Amazon
Amazon US

Booksellers & libraries:
ipage® at Ingram

Arthur Symons (1865-1945), English critic

5 other titles

Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-98), French poet

9 other titles

Legenda (General Series)

Legenda

17 May 2017 • 258pp

ISBN: 978-1-781884-81-2 (hardback) • RRP £80, $110, €95

ISBN: 978-1-781884-82-9 (paperback, 30 September 2018) • RRP £10.99, $14.99, €13.49

ISBN: 978-1-781884-83-6 (JSTOR ebook)

Access online: Books@JSTOR

ModernEnglishFrenchPoetryArtstudent-priced

In addition to its original library hardback edition, this title is now on sale in the new student-priced Legenda paperback range.

Reading Decadence is an intersensorial experience. It is to indulge in voluptuous pleasures and excruciating pains, to sample exotic tastes and sounds, and to envisage states of mind in highly sensual terms. Obsessed with extreme sensory experiences, Decadent writers identified ways of shocking the middle classes and rejecting moralism by turning the conventional notion of 'good taste' on its head. This collection of essays explores the Decadent sensorium in the work of established and less well-known Decadent writers and artists, including Rachilde, Theodore Wratislaw, Arthur Symons, Mark André Raffalovich, J.-K. Huysmans, Theodore Watts-Dunton, Michael Field, Ernest Dowson, and Stéphane Mallarmé. Tracing sensual motifs and figures in the work of late nineteenth-century Decadent writers and artists, leading and emerging scholars in the field offer new and provocative insights into the Decadent imagination.

Jane Desmarais is Senior Lecturer in English at Goldsmiths, University of London. Alice Condé is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London.

See news item: At the Symonsposium (8 August 2017)

Reviews:

‘I found Maxwell’s discussion of the tuberose, and more speci cally Walter Pater’s conscription of that flower to describe his own rarefied prose style, to be particularly interesting, as Pater’s writing is so often considered the acme of Decadent prose. It seems that the orchid that famously reminded Dorian Gray of the seven deadly sins should, perhaps, have been a tuberose. Equally interesting is Angela Dunstan’s suggestion that Theodore Watts-Dunton’s roman-à-clef Aylwin became for readers a means of owning the celebrity of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, or the notion extended by Liz Renes that John Singer Sargent’s Madame X should be considered a meditation on the white, sculptural body and its changing role in modern art.’ — Jamie Horrocks, English Literature in Translation 61.4, 2018, 525-28
‘It is perhaps fitting that the unity of a book on Decadent literature should be best experienced ‘decomposed’ to give place to the independence of each chapter. There is no doubt, however, that the high quality of its constituent parts forms a significant contribution to Sensory Studies and that the collection is a ‘must-read’ for any student of Decadence at the fin de siècle and beyond.’ — Patricia Pulham, Modern Language Review 114.1, January 2019, 128-29 (full text online)
‘Desmarais and Condé have done an enormous service by opening up this can of repulsive worms.’ — Dennis Denisoff, Victorian Studies 61.2, Winter 2019, 554-56

Contents:

ix-ix	Acknowledgements Jane Desmarais, Alice Condé doi:10.2307/j.ctv16kkz22.3	Cite
	To see how to cite this article in standard MHRA style, follow this link. To see how to cite this article in author-date MHRA style, follow this link.
x-xii	Notes On the Contributors Jane Desmarais, Alice Condé doi:10.2307/j.ctv16kkz22.4	Cite
	To see how to cite this article in standard MHRA style, follow this link. To see how to cite this article in author-date MHRA style, follow this link.
xiii-xiv	List of Illustrations Jane Desmarais, Alice Condé doi:10.2307/j.ctv16kkz22.5	Cite
	To see how to cite this article in standard MHRA style, follow this link. To see how to cite this article in author-date MHRA style, follow this link.
1-14	Introduction Jane Desmarais, Alice Condé doi:10.2307/j.ctv16kkz22.6	Cite
	To see how to cite this article in standard MHRA style, follow this link. To see how to cite this article in author-date MHRA style, follow this link.
15-31	Chapter 1 Symons and Whistler: the Art of Seeing Nick Freeman doi:10.2307/j.ctv16kkz22.7	Cite
	To see how to cite this article in standard MHRA style, follow this link. To see how to cite this article in author-date MHRA style, follow this link.
32-50	Chapter 2 Carnal Flowers, Charnel Flowers: Perfume in the Decadent Literary Imagination Catherine Maxwell doi:10.2307/j.ctv16kkz22.8	Cite
	To see how to cite this article in standard MHRA style, follow this link. To see how to cite this article in author-date MHRA style, follow this link.
51-65	Chapter 3 Decadent Sensuality in Rachilde and Wilde Petra Dierkes-Thrun doi:10.2307/j.ctv16kkz22.9	Cite
	To see how to cite this article in standard MHRA style, follow this link. To see how to cite this article in author-date MHRA style, follow this link.
66-82	Chapter 4 ‘Things Worldly and Things Spiritual’: Huysmans’s À Rebours and the House at Fontenay Jessica Gossling doi:10.2307/j.ctv16kkz22.10	Cite
	To see how to cite this article in standard MHRA style, follow this link. To see how to cite this article in author-date MHRA style, follow this link.
83-100	Chapter 5 All the Senses Would Melt Into One’: Theodore Watts-Dunton’s Aylwin and the Decadent Pleasures of the Roman-A-Clef Angela Dunstan doi:10.2307/j.ctv16kkz22.11	Cite
	To see how to cite this article in standard MHRA style, follow this link. To see how to cite this article in author-date MHRA style, follow this link.
101-120	Chapter 6 ‘Use My Body Like the Pages of A Book’: Decadence and the Eroticized Text Kostas Boyiopoulos doi:10.2307/j.ctv16kkz22.12	Cite
	To see how to cite this article in standard MHRA style, follow this link. To see how to cite this article in author-date MHRA style, follow this link.
121-140	Chapter 7 Bittersweet: Michael Field’s Sapphic Palate Sarah Parker doi:10.2307/j.ctv16kkz22.13	Cite
	To see how to cite this article in standard MHRA style, follow this link. To see how to cite this article in author-date MHRA style, follow this link.
141-161	Chapter 8 Dancing the Image: Sensoriality and Kinesthetics in the Poetry of Stephane Mallarme and Arthur Symons Katharina Herold doi:10.2307/j.ctv16kkz22.14	Cite
	To see how to cite this article in standard MHRA style, follow this link. To see how to cite this article in author-date MHRA style, follow this link.
162-181	Chapter 9 Decadent Sensations: Art, the Body and Sensuality in the ‘Little Magazines’ (1885–1897) Matthew Brinton Tildesley doi:10.2307/j.ctv16kkz22.15	Cite
	To see how to cite this article in standard MHRA style, follow this link. To see how to cite this article in author-date MHRA style, follow this link.
182-199	Chapter 10 ‘Selecting, Transforming, Recombining’: John Singer Sargent’s Madame X and the Aesthetics of Sculptural Corporeality Liz Renes doi:10.2307/j.ctv16kkz22.16	Cite
	To see how to cite this article in standard MHRA style, follow this link. To see how to cite this article in author-date MHRA style, follow this link.
200-218	Chapter 11 Sensory Nullification in the Poetry of Ernest Dowson Alice Condé doi:10.2307/j.ctv16kkz22.17	Cite
	To see how to cite this article in standard MHRA style, follow this link. To see how to cite this article in author-date MHRA style, follow this link.
219-228	Chapter 12 Afterword: Decadent Taste David Weir doi:10.2307/j.ctv16kkz22.18	Cite
	To see how to cite this article in standard MHRA style, follow this link. To see how to cite this article in author-date MHRA style, follow this link.
229-235	Appendix Carnal Flowers, Charnel Flowers: Perfume in the Decadent Imagination Jane Desmarais, Alice Condé doi:10.2307/j.ctv16kkz22.19	Cite
	To see how to cite this article in standard MHRA style, follow this link. To see how to cite this article in author-date MHRA style, follow this link.
236-237	Select Bibliography Jane Desmarais, Alice Condé doi:10.2307/j.ctv16kkz22.20	Cite
	To see how to cite this article in standard MHRA style, follow this link. To see how to cite this article in author-date MHRA style, follow this link.
238-244	Index Jane Desmarais, Alice Condé doi:10.2307/j.ctv16kkz22.21	Cite
	To see how to cite this article in standard MHRA style, follow this link. To see how to cite this article in author-date MHRA style, follow this link.

Cite this volume in standard MHRA style

Bibliography entry:

Desmarais, Jane, and Alice Condé (eds), Decadence and the Senses (Legenda, 2017)

First footnote reference: ³⁵ Decadence and the Senses, ed. by Jane Desmarais and Alice Condé (Legenda, 2017), p. 21.

Subsequent footnote reference: ³⁷ Desmarais and Condé, p. 47.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

Cite this volume in MHRA author-date style

Bibliography entry:

Desmarais, Jane, and Alice Condé (eds). 2017. Decadence and the Senses (Legenda)

Example citation: ‘A quotation occurring on page 21 of this work’ (Desmarais and Condé 2017: 21).

Example footnote reference: ³⁵ Desmarais and Condé 2017: 21.

(To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.)

This title is distributed on behalf of MHRA by Ingram’s. Booksellers and libraries can order direct from Ingram by setting up an ipage Account: click here for more.

Permanent link to this title:

www.mhra.org.uk/publications/Decadence-Senses