Abstract
Victorian melancholy disclosed its uneasiness in the concept of decadence. The word began to be used in England about 1850, as if the distentions of empire necessarily entailed spiritual decline and fall. ‘Decadent’ was not a word that Ruskin or Arnold found congenial: Ruskin preferred ‘corruption’ and Arnold ‘philistinism’ and ‘barbarism’. But decadence, with implications of the fading day, season and century, had an unfamiliar ring and gradually came to seem the right word. As if to confirm its rightness, the principal guardians of the Victorian age in statecraft and in literature ailed and then died symbolically as well as literally. Most were gone by the time the nineties started. ‘The woods decay, the woods decay and fall.’
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1988 Ceri Crossley and Ian Small
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ellmann, R. (1988). The Uses of Decadence: Wilde, Yeats, Joyce. In: Crossley, C., Small, I. (eds) Studies in Anglo-French Cultural Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07921-6_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-07921-6_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-07923-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-07921-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)