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Fin-de-Siècle

Fin-de-Siècle. late c19 Aestheticism & Decadence. Fin-de-siècle. “End of the Era” – felt during the time , sense of ending Distinct moment in the late Victorian period (ca. 1885-1901); precursor to Modernism Age of Paradoxes

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Fin-de-Siècle

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  1. Fin-de-Siècle late c19 Aestheticism & Decadence

  2. Fin-de-siècle • “End of the Era” – felt during the time, sense of ending • Distinct moment in the late Victorian period (ca. 1885-1901); precursor to Modernism • Age of Paradoxes • Sense of exhaustion, loss of vitality – “Culture” enervated • Literary focus on images rather than events(cf. C20 Modernism) • Belief in autonomy of artist (Elizabeth Barrett Browning?) (p. 1888) • New possibilities for gender roles and self-invention (p. 1888) • “Manly Woman” and “Womanly Man” • “New Woman” -- Intellectually and sexually independent • “Aesthete” – interested in finery, witty dialogue, and manners – FLAMBOYANCE

  3. AESTHETICISM • Reacted by inverting many of the Victorian values (p. 1885) • “Art for art’s sake” (not moral concern for public good) • Appetite for the sensuous, desire for the intense (images pp.1886-87) • Exquisite attention to surface and trite detail

  4. decadence • Tawdry subject matter • Amoral attitude, or at least vs. traditional morality •  FLAUNTING it • Sympathetic to social outcasts • Ultra-refined sophistication of taste • Sex & the forbidden pervade much of literary output (p. 1888) • I.e. longing for “forbidden fruit” • Mainstream believed Decadence heralded collapse of Western Civ(p. 1887)

  5. Alone (1896) – Henri de toulouse-lautrec

  6. The climax (1893) – aubreybeardsley

  7. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) • Goal of social evolution is “joyous individualism” (p. 1819) • Inversion of traditional Victorian Values: treat serious things trivially, trivial things with studied seriousness (p. 1820) • Relatively open about homosexuality while it was still illegal • Trial, prison, harsh end of life (p. 1821)

  8. The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) • Epigrammatic – series of witty statements that can stand on their own • Paradoxical – Revels in self-contradictions that nonetheless express truth • Satire on the Victorian ideal of Earnestness as character trait plus moral philosophy (p. 1829) • Neat resolution of popular British C19 Drama • Comedy in the classical sense: begin with error & confusion, end with knowledge, recognition, self-discovery (also Comic). • Questions social hierarchies based on birth • Explores fictions of personality • Men freely explore fictive selves yet are completely controlled by women • Anticipates modernist Theater of the Absurd

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