Decadent Orientalisms presents a sustained critique of the ways Orientalism and decadence have formed a joint discursive mode of the imperial imagination. Rather than attending to Orientalism as a ...repertoire of clichés and stereotypes, Fieni reads both Western and Islamic discourses of decadence to show the diffuse, yet coherent network of institutions that have constituted Orientalism's power.
This book examines systematically, for the first time, poems by three protagonists of the 1890s: Oscar Wilde, Arthur Symons and Ernest Dowson. It sees their poems as sites where the self sensually ...collides with or is immersed in their artifice. This study examines Wilde's neglected early poetry and its role in triggering this shift. It shows how the idea of an erotic encounter with artifice reaches its apex in Symons's poetry, and how in Dowson it ripens into vexing non-collisions.
The first generation of Russian modernists experienced a profound sense of anxiety resulting from the belief that they were living in an age of decline. What made them unique was their utopian ...prescription for overcoming the inevitability of decline and death both by metaphysical and physical means. They intertwined their mystical erotic discourse with European degeneration theory and its obsession with the destabilization of gender. In Erotic Utopia , Olga Matich suggests that same-sex desire underlay their most radical utopian proposal of abolishing the traditional procreative family in favor of erotically induced abstinence.   2006 Winner, CHOICE Award for Outstanding Academic Titles, Current Reviews for Academic Libraries   Honorable Mention, Aldo and Jean Scaglione Prize for Studies in Slavic Languages and Literatures, Modern Language Association “Offers a fresh perspective and a wealth of new information on early Russian modernism. . . . It is required reading for anyone interested in fin-de-siècle Russia and in the history of sexuality in general.”—Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Slavic and East European Journal “Thoroughly entertaining.”—Avril Pyman, Slavic Review
Abstract Nietzsche’s portrayal of Pyrrho is predominately contained in two of his notebooks from 1888, and they present a somewhat ambivalent attitude toward him. In this article, I offer an ...explanation for Nietzsche’s variegated observations, and contend that his interest in Pyrrho is not really founded upon his radical scepticism as one might expect. Rather, it is Nietzsche’s preoccupation with decadence in general – and its ancient Greek philosophical incarnations in particular – that drives his scrutiny of Pyrrho. I describe Nietzsche’s evolving depiction of Pyrrho as one that ultimately develops into a critique, whereby Pyrrho is associated with a number of types of decadence, as well as exhibiting the characteristic traits of a decadent. I close by examining the cogency and soundness of Nietzsche’s interpretation of Pyrrho as a specific exemplar of decadence.
Decadent Orientalisms presents a sustained critique of the ways Orientalism and decadence have formed a joint discursive mode of the imperial imagination. Attentive to historical and literary ...configurations of language, race, religion, and power, Fieni shows the importance of understanding Western discourses of Eastern decline and obsolescence together with Arab and Islamic responses in which the language of decadence returns as a characteristic of the West. Taking seriously Edward Said's claim that Orientalism is a "style of having power," Fieni works historically through the aesthetic and ideological effects of Orientalist style, showing how it is at once comparative, descriptive, and performative. Orientalism, the book argues, relies upon decadence as the figure through which its positivist scientific claims become redistributed as speech acts-"truths" that establish dominance. Rather than attending to Orientalism as a repertoire of clichés and stereotypes,Decadent Orientalisms considers the systemic epistemological consequences of the diffuse, yet coherent network of institutions that have constituted Orientalism's power. The book presents a compelling account of the fraught relationship between Muslims, Arabs, and Jews as objects of Semitism and anti-Semitism.An admirably comparative book that crosses centuries, genres, and languages.The book provides much-needed background on contemporary issues relating to France and Islam.The book completes Edward Said'sOrientalism by exploring Arab and Muslim responses to Orientalist knowledge practices, especially in the Maghreb.
This paper aims at tracing a link between early literary works, namely via French
Décadence
, the notion of Art for Art’s Sake and the trope of doubleness, concepts that intertwine both independent ...self-assertion and the defeat of Man by Nature as these come to be represented in Oscar Wilde’s
The Picture of Dorian Gray
(1890). The dialogue between coeval aesthetical movements and the complexity of such an oeuvre unveils instances of undeniable influence; on the other hand, it also ascertains the uniqueness of Wilde’s provocative take on beauty and life.
This article defines decadence as the aesthetics of ambivalences, drawing on Charles Baudelaire’s poem “A Carcass” (Une charogne), where decadence signifies both decline and deterioration, as well as ...rising, transition, and renewal. This extends beyond the organic and physiological sense, serving as a reference to the transformation of artistic aesthetics. The usage tradition of the concept of decadence in 18th and early 19th-century French culture is briefly explored. Initially denoting historical decline (Charles de Montesquieu, Edward Gibbon), it later, in the early 19th century, encompassed aesthetic degeneration (Désiré Nisard). The definitions of literary decadence by Théophile Gautier, Baudelaire, and Paul Bourget, prevalent in the second half and end of the 19th century, are examined in more detail. These three theorists and authors define decadence similarly to Nisard in terms of a specific mode of expression, characterized by accumulating details, a preference for rich vocabulary borrowed from various fields, the principle of syncretism, and an attempt to express the most obscure thoughts and the most fleeting forms. However, unlike Nisard, they attribute a positive value to this style. In addition to Paul Bourget, who expanded the semantic field of decadence, the article outlines Friedrich Nietzsche’s understanding of the ambivalent content of this concept and discusses Egon Friedell, a key developer of Nietzschean decadence in the German cultural sphere in the 20th century. The second part of the article delves into the connection between decadence and naturalism and their merging in the so-called spiritual naturalism. Friedebert Tuglas formulated the latter as an aesthetic ideal, drawing inspiration from Joris-Karl Huysmans’ novel Là-Bas (1891). The article examines a number of examples of Estonian and international literary decadence, where the combination of decadence and naturalism clearly serves to reproduce the aesthetics of ambivalences (e.g., Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot”, J. Randvere’s “Ruth”, Friedebert Tuglas’ “Felix Ormusson”, August Gailit’s “Purple Death” (Purpurne surm)). It is pointed out that while Estonian literary decadence is influenced by various cultures (in addition to French culture, German, Russian, English, and Italian examples also play an important role), its tonality most closely resembles Scandinavian literary decadence.
