Fictions of British Decadence: High Art, Popular Writing and the Fin de Siècle, and: Vernon Lee: Decadence, Ethics, Aesthetics (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Fictions of British Decadence: High Art, Popular Writing and the Fin de Siècle, and: Vernon Lee: Decadence, Ethics, Aesthetics Martha Vicinus (bio) Kirsten MacLeod , Fictions of British Decadence: High Art, Popular Writing and the Fin de Siècle (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2006), ix +222 pages, hardback, £45 (ISBN 0 333 97700 9). Catherine Maxwell and Patricia Pulham (eds), Vernon Lee: Decadence, Ethics, Aesthetics (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2006), xii + 210 pages, hardback, £45 (ISBN 0 333 97700 9). These books are representative of the current critical reappraisal of the fin-de-siècle, usually defined as the years 1880-1913. Until recently, its literature and authors were condemned to the status of irretrievably minor, haunted by scandal (the trial of Oscar Wilde), suicide (Ernest Dowson and John Davidson), and alcohol (Lionel Johnson died after falling off a bar stool). But then feminist critics discovered the 'New Woman' novels of the period, and Sarah Grand, 'George Egerton', 'Lucas Malet' and others enjoyed a second life. Influential studies by Regenia Gagnier and Jonathan Freedman placed Aestheticism in the context of the market place, demonstrating the power of modern capitalism to turn art and literature into commodities. James A. Nelson and Margaret Stetz unravelled the economics of fine-art publishing, concluding that avant-garde publishers always hoped to turn a profit. Isobel Armstrong and Joseph Bristow, among many others, did much to recuperate forgotten poets, many of whom lived long and vigorous lives. Critics have emphasized the variety of work published during these decades, its marked refusal of Victorian literary norms, and its formal experimentation. Aestheticism was the single most powerful literary movement ofthe late nineteenth century. The groundwork for privileging art over materialism had been laid by that great Victorian moralist, John Ruskin, but a younger generation insisted upon creating art without a moral lesson. Writers such as Walter Pater, John Addington Symonds and Bernard Berenson assumed that their work would appeal only to the enlightened intelligentsia. They laid the ground for professionals – the art connoisseur, interior decorator and high-brow literary critic, who could advise the reader on the best works to admire and purchase. [End Page 158] Karin MacLeod points out in her useful survey, the aesthetic goals of the 1870s and 1880s led naturally to the Decadent movement of the 1890s. Unlike Aesthetes, the Decadents flaunted their dilettantism and desire to shock the bourgeoisie. Following Baudelaire, the Decadents boldly insisted on the beauty of ugliness. The music hall was discovered, and its ribald jokes and saucy lyrics praised as the quintessence of urban life. Writers flaunted their adherence to an aristocratic dilettantism and a working-class sensuality; their notoriety made good copy, even if it did not sell books, as MacLeod astutely notes. MacLeod considers the interpenetration of aesthetic, high art and popular fiction. She shrewdly notes that popular writers such as Marie Corelli exploited the fascination with the lives of the Decadents by proclaiming her superior morality and creating attractively decadent villains. Other women writers found it more difficult to capitalize on the hunger for titillating characters. Such New Women writers as Sarah Grand attacked the trivialization of art by 'clever young men', and argued the importance of literature with a purpose. Nevertheless, her negative portrait of Decadence in The Beth Book (1897) was condemned by some as too preachy and by others as lewd and suggestive. Vernon Lee had attempted to create a satiric portrait of a misogynistic aesthete in her novel Miss Brown (1884). She too had met with a chilly critical reception, even though she was an admired member of London's top literary circles. MacLeod effectively traces the continuing power of male critical authority throughout the period, and the difficulty women faced if they wished to gain both critical respect and a male readership. MacLeod's most original contribution to fin-de-siècle studies is her chapters on two neglected writers, Arthur Machen and M.P. Shiel. Both men began as Decadents, publishing their best known works in John Lane's Keynote series. Machen's The Great God Pan (1894) and Shiel's Prince Zaleski (1895) are what she calls 'a collaboration of high and low' literary elements (128). Machen specialized in combining...