What is Victorian decadence?

Aestheticism and decadence shocked the Victorian establishment by challenging traditional values, foregrounding sensuality and promoting artistic, sexual and political experimentation. Dr Carolyn Burdett explores the key features of this unconventional artistic period.

What does decadent mean in art?

Decadence generally refers to an extreme manifestation of symbolism which appeared towards the end of the nineteenth century and emphasised the spiritual, the morbid and the erotic.

What is the decadent movement and why is it important?

The Decadent Movement was the evolution of art and literature into modern society. It was an aesthetic ideology of valuing excess and artificiality, with human creativity challenging traditional values of logic alongside the natural world through social, political and artistic experimentation.

What is decadent writing?

Decadent, French Décadent, any of several poets or other writers of the end of the 19th century, including the French Symbolist poets in particular and their contemporaries in England, the later generation of the Aesthetic movement.

What is the origin of the word decadent?

lifestyle. This use of decadent more closely reflects the etymological roots of the word: decadent derives from decadence, which comes from the Latin verb decadere meaning “to fall” or “to sink.” The real clue to where decadent began comes from its cousin, another word derived from decadere: decay.

What is decadent behavior?

Decadence is defined as behavior that shows a love of self-indulgence, pleasure and money, or the process of decline or decay in society’s ethical and moral traditions. An example of decadence is a dessert bar with hundreds of choices of chocolate desserts.

What is decadent play?

Bring out the features of decadent play with reference to the plays of the Jacobean Age. We know that the term “decadence” means “decline” which is evident in the tragedies after William Shakespeare. It usually describes a period of art or literature in comparison with the excellence of the former age.

Why is chocolate decadent?

Decadent chocolate is a metaphor and a bit of exaggeration. The idea is that chocolate is so pleasurable that it is wicked to eat it. Besides, chocolate is so rich in flavor and calories, so it implies that it’s decadent to enjoy any cake due to its calorific effects.

Why is food called decadent?

So why is food called decadent? After all, the decadent definition implies decay or decline or “to fall,” and that doesn’t sound very tasty. Hence, decadent food is food that can extravagantly and heedlessly appeal to your self-indulgence.

Why is decadent used to describe food?

Folks today might not be as self-consciously nihilistic as their dissolute forebears, but the use of “decadent,” meaning “extravagantly and heedlessly self-indulgent,” remains. When applied to food, this implies rich, luxurious, fat-filled, highly caloric and possibly downright dangerous dishes.

What is the Decadent movement in literature?

Decadent movement. The Decadent movement was a late-19th-century artistic and literary movement, centered in Western Europe, that followed an aesthetic ideology of excess and artificiality. The visual artist Félicien Rops’s body of work and Joris-Karl Huysmans’s novel Against Nature (1884) are considered the prime examples of the decadent movement.

What was the last period of the Victorian era?

The last part of the Victorian period, roughly 1880-1900, is referred to as the “fin de siècle,” a French term that means “end of the century.” Novels from this period tend to be more melancholy and bleak than earlier Victorian works, which conventionally had happy endings.

Why is decadence important in Victorian literature?

Along with aestheticism and symbolism (literary categories with which it often overlaps), decadence has become a vital focus within literary study of the Victorians, and it now appears secure as one of the major strands of teaching and research in the literature of the period.

How did aestheticism and decadence shock the Victorian establishment?

Aestheticism and decadence shocked the Victorian establishment by challenging traditional values, foregrounding sensuality and promoting artistic, sexual and political experimentation. Dr Carolyn Burdett explores the key features of this unconventional artistic period.