The Dedalus Book of English Decadence: Vile Emperors and Elegant DegeneratesJames Willsher The 1890s English Decadence was no mere polite response to French invention, but the hothouse blossoming of long indigenous researches into the perverse. Like Imperial Rome, England could hardly subdue and rule the globe without becoming corrupt. The Romantics tried rebellion, but amidst Victorian industry, terminally fatigued Decadents concerned themselves with cultivating their addiction to luxury and sensation. In The Dedalus Book of English Decadence: Vile Emperors and Elegant Degenerates, avatars and acolytes such as Beckford, Byron, De Quincey, Dowson, Bosie and Wilde are all to be found at their unwholesome best. |
Contents
INTRODUCTION | 11 |
LINES WRITTEN DURING A PERIOD | 41 |
DARKNESS Lord Byron | 50 |
Copyright | |
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Algernon Charles Swinburne Arthur Symons Aubrey Beardsley B.Format Baudelaire beauty Beckford blood breath Byron Caliph Carathis century child Clarke colour dark dead death Dedalus Book delight Dolores Dorian Gray dream earth emperor England English decadence Enoch Soames Ernest Dowson exquisite eyelids eyes face fascinating fear fell fire Firouzkah flame flowers French fruit gardens girl hair hands head heart heaven horror hour Huysmans John Keats kisses Lady of Pain laugh light limbs Lionel Johnson lips live looked Lord Alfred Douglas lovers lust Mage Mirbeau never night opium Orient Oscar Wilde pale Passages passion Pater pleasure poems poet Quincey Roman rose Rothenstein round seemed sensation sense shadow Sir Max Beerbohm sleep smile soft soul stories strange sweet Tannhauser thee thine things thought tower Vathek Venus verse voice W. B. Yeats whilst Wilde's wine wonder words writing Yellow Book young