Aestheticism, Decadence, and the Fin de Siecle

Aestheticism, Decadence, and the Fin de Siecle

Richard Le Gallienne

1866-1947

By: Emily Demmer and Loren Moreno

Lord Alfred Douglas

Lionel Johnson

1867-1902

1870-1945

Pastel

• Came from a middle class background from Liverpool.
• When he moved to London he started to become part of the literary world and he added the "Le" to his name.
• He started publishing in The Yellow Book and became acquainted with writers like Swinburne and Wilde.
• He became apart of their Rhymers Club but unlike most of them he was a popular writer and journalist. As well as an author of fiction and essays as well as poetry.
• But he was torn between acceptance and criticism of the aesthetic creed.

• He embodied the new sexual freedom during the early 1890's.
• Him and Oscar Wilde had a tempestuous relationship.
• Although he secretly married the poet Olive Custance. The marriage ended in 1913 by which time he had converted to Catholicism and renounced his homosexuality.
• He did write about his times with Oscar Wilde like Oscar Wilde and Myself (1914) and Oscar Wilde: A Summing Up (1940).

The light of our cigarette

Went and came in the gloom:

It was dark in the little room.

Dark, and then, in the dark,

Sudden, a flash, a glow,

And a hand and a ring I know.

And then, through the dark, a flush

Ruddy and vague, the grace-

A rose-of her lyric.

• Was also a part of the Rhymers' Club.
• The Rhymers' Club was a club where people met to discuss and read poetry.
• Johnson sought out pure poetry so he lived celibate with only whiskey and conversation to brighten his days. He would have imaginary conversations with Cardinal Newman and Prime Minister Gladstone.
• He was a representative of "The Tragic Generation" of the 1890's who's empty lives didn't let them know their own talent.
• Johnson was an insomniac and and alcoholic which resulted his death by falling off a barstool at the age of 35.

The White Witch

Her body is a dancing joy, a delicate delight,

her hair a silver glamour in a net of golden light.

Her face is like the faces that a dreamer sometimes meets,

A face that Leonardo would have followed through the streets.

Her eyelids are like clouds tt spread white wings across blue skies,

Like shadows in still water are the sorrows in her eyes.

How flower-like are the smiling lips so many have desired,

Curled lips that love's long kisses have left a little tired.

Olive Custance (Lady Alfred Douglas)

1874-1944

• She was a contributor to The Yellow Book magazine and was also contributing to the era's confusion of gender roles.
• She herself had homosexual tendencies and had relations with an American poet named Natalie Clifford Barney. Barney introduced Custance to lesbian literary scene in Paris.
• Their relationship is what Custance was writing about in her poem The White Witch.
• Their relationship did not last too long because of Custance's love for Wilde's friend Lord Alfred Douglas. The main reason for the marriage failing is is conversion to Catholicism.
• He was the reason behind her writing Statues.

"Micheal Field"

Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper

1846-1914

1862-1913

James Abbott McNeill Whistler

1834-1903

• "Micheal Field" was a pseudonym for Katharine Bradley and her niece Edith Cooper. Together they wrote twenty-seven poetic dramas on historical themes. Then wrote eight volumes of lyric poetry. Their work was praised by people like Meredith, Swinburne, and Wilde.
• The women lived together and had a close emotional and a sexual relationship. A few of their works did highlight some lesbian nature from Greek poetry. Although in 1907 both women converted to Catholicism.

• Whistler was born in American and moved to London in the early 1860's. He was an artist and came to influence artists like Claude Monet. He also influenced a poet named Stephane Mallarme.
• His lecture "Ten O' Clock" (ironically given at 10 P.M.) is mainly about how art is created and made for arts sake. In his lecture he told his audience about artistic

independence and sarcastically dismissed other theories.

Ada Leverson

Arthur Symons

1865-1945

1862-1933

• Born in Wales as the son of a Methodist minister Symons dedicated his life to become British Literature's most decadent cosmopolitan.
• Although most of his works caused disputes because of his scandalous poetry. He enjoyed it though, and also refused to explain or moralize any of it.

W. S. Gilbert

• Ada Leverson was close with Oscar Wilde and occasionally wrote parodies on some of his works. She even visited him when he was in prison. She was also known to be really fashionable at all times.
• She married young at 19 to 31 year old Ernest Leverson. Later she regreted this decision and had other affairs while her husband had his own mistresses.
• Although there was one thing that held them together. They helped out Oscar Wilde when he started having trouble and secretly took care of him in between his trials.
• Her short story, Suggestion, was published in The Yellow Book.

1836-1911

• William Schwenk Gilbert had a partnership with a composer named Arthur Sullivan. Together these two wrote fourteen light operas. Some are still performed worldwide today.
• Some of these operas include: H.M.S. Pinafore (1878), The Pirates of Penzance (1879), and The Mikado (1885).

Aestheticism, Decadence, and the Fin de Siecle

During this late-Victorian time period it was when people like Beardsley and Wilde, Kipling and Conan Doyle were the ones to help change peoples way of thinking about style and attitude. This time period is when morals and aesthetics were changing and transforming into modernism.

The height of Aestheticism and Decadence ended with Oscar Wilde when we was arrested and went to jail for sodomy.

The Term Fin de Siele means "end of the age" . So this means that the era was ending and a new one was coming about. This new era was more modern in all aspects.

http://sheepskeleton.deviantart.com/art/fin-de-siecle-381151209

Damrosh, David, and Kevin J. H. Dettmar 1885-1916