Decadent movement  

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In fin de siècle Europe, the Decadents were a group of artists who rejected the Modernist trend towards realism and continued the Romantic tradition of irrationalism. The term decadent was a term of abuse by French critics which the decadents adopted triumphantly. The Symbolist and Aesthetic movements were contemporary and similar. The classic novel from this group is Joris-Karl Huysmans' Against Nature, often seen as the first great Decadent work, though others attribute this honor to Baudelaire's works. In Britain the leading figure associated with the Decadent movement was Oscar Wilde. He paid a high price for his "decadence" by being sent to jail for allegations of homosexuality. By the first decade of the 20th century, this movement was over, some of its influences still lingering on in Art Nouveau. [Dec 2006]

"I love this word decadence, all shimmering in purple and gold. It suggests the subtle thoughts of ultimate civilization, a high literary culture, a soul capable of intense pleasures. It throws off bursts of fire and the sparkle of precious stones. It is redolent of the rouge of courtesans, the games of the circus, the panting of the gladiators, the spring of wild beasts, the consuming in flames of races exhausted by their capacity for sensation, as the tramp of an invading army sounds." -- Paul Verlaine quoted in William Gaunt, The Aesthetic Adventure.

In 19th century European and especially French literature, decadence was the name given, first by hostile critics, and then triumphantly adopted by some writers themselves, to a number of late nineteenth century fin de siècle writers who were associated with Symbolism or the Aesthetic movement and who relished artifice over the earlier Romantics' naïve view of nature (see Rousseau). Some of these writers were influenced by the tradition of the Gothic novel and by the poetry and fiction of Edgar Allan Poe.

This concept of decadence dates from the eighteenth century, especially from Montesquieu, and was taken up by critics as a term of abuse after Désiré Nisard used it against Victor Hugo and Romanticism in general. A later generation of Romantics, such as Théophile Gautier and Charles Baudelaire took the word as a badge of pride, as a sign of their rejection of what they saw as banal "progress". In the 1880s a group of French writers referred to themselves as decadents. The classic novel from this group is Joris-Karl Huysmans' Against Nature, often seen as the first great Decadent work, though others attribute this honor to Baudelaire's works. In Britain the leading figure associated with the Decadent movement was Oscar Wilde.

As a literary movement, Decadence is now regarded as a transition between Romanticism and Modernism.

The Symbolist movement has frequently been confused with the decadent movement. Several young writers were derisively referred to in the press as "decadent" in the mid 1880s. Jean Moréas' manifesto was largely a response to this polemic. A few of these writers embraced the term while most avoided it. Although the esthetics of Symbolism and Decadence can be seen as overlapping in some areas, the two remain distinct.

Artists of the decadent movement

• Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly
• Charles Pierre Baudelaire
• Franz von Bayros
• Aubrey Beardsley
• Remy de Gourmont
• Ernest Dowson
• J. K. Huysmans
• Comte de Lautréamont
• Guy de Maupassant
• Gustave Moreau
• Edvard Munch
• Rachilde
• Odilon Redon
• Arthur Rimbaud
• Gérard de Nerval
• Georges Rodenbach
• Félicien Rops
• Octave Mirbeau
• Franz von Stuck
• Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam
• Oscar Wilde
• Eric Stenbock
• Arthur Symons
• Frances Featherstone

Bibliography

• Mario Praz, The Romantic Agony, 1930 ISBN 0-19-281061-8
• Philippe Jullian, Esthétes et Magiciens 1969; Dreamers of Decadence, 1971.