Decadence

Beyond the Socially Acceptable There are many things that can be said about Decadent poetry. It’s central themes are numerous, from aestheticism and beauty for the sake of it, to paganism and the urban, there are a multitude of angles one can take when analysing and interpreting the work of the poets of the fin du siècle. One of those themes is the idea of transgression; going beyond the limits and the law, exploring what is socially acceptable and more importantly what isn’t, and the consequences of said explorations. Whether it was a question of morals, sexuality or values, the decadents liked to break the chains of society’s constraints and write about what they found in their path. By analyzing the works of three different poets from the fin du siècle, we can get a broader understanding of the various ways the theme of transgression was explored in the writing of this period. Johnson 's "The Dark Angel", Gray 's "Did we not, darling you and I" and Symons ' "Nocturne", are three poems that can be interpreted as being about breaking the rules of what was socially acceptable at the time. Through allusions, word choices and imagery, these poets discussed transgression and its implications in the late Victorian and early Edwardian period. In Johnson 's "The Dark Angel", the speaker addresses said dark angel directly, expressing anguish and torment at the way he 's being tempted to break the rules. At a time when homosexuality was illegal, one obvious interpretation of the…

The Great Gatsby: A Time of Doomed Decadence and Harmful Hedonism The 1920’s is often depicted as a time of economic prosperity, social optimism, and lavish decadence. What is commonly obscured, however, is that the 1920’s was also a time in which the morals and motivation of Americans reached its lowest point. This is the unexplored truth of the 1920’s as it is perfectly examined in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tragic novel, The Great Gatsby, giving readers a true taste of this decade-long party…

Disillusionment is straightly defined as a feeling of disappointment resulting from the discovery that something is not as good as one believed it to be, according to the Oxford Dictionaries. Throughout The Sun Also Rises, and The Great Gatsby, motifs of decadence and its relationship with loss often reoccur in comparison, as the primary characters in each of the novels transpose this decadence differently. Whereas in The Great Gatsby the loss of decadence results in an emotional spiral,…

The Roaring Twenties in America is the era of expansion in the economy and technology invention. It brings Americans more opportunities to get rich and a modern way of living. The era is also remarked by the decay of society’s moral during the Prohibition period. Fitzgerald describes this moral decadence through his famous work, The Great Gatsby, by portraying the infamous bootlegger, Jay Gatsby. During the Roaring Twenties, the government ratified the 18th Amendment, also know as…

Decadence has been defined as a decline in cultural values and morality by doing things that are against the acceptable cultural and moral values of the Japanese people. Based on Sakaguchi Ango’s essay it can be scrutinized that after the World War II there a decline in Japanese cultural values that put them together. During the war times, the article indicates that writers were not allowed to portray the image of women who had lost their husband during the war. The aim of forbidding writers to…

Everything begins since 500 century with the two big and powerful empires which knows as Roman and Persian. These two empires ruled the whole Asia. There was a strong hatred between the Jews and the Romans in particular what necessitated by intolerance of those days, and this hatred was alone in the days of Hercules. The Persians were very social decadence of the pre-Islamic. The Persians were very social decadence of the pre-Islamic. There are many disagreements have occurred between Romans…

Before examining the characters and the effect decadence had on them it is crucial to put together a working definition of the genre. However, this is no easy task due to the inherent paradoxical nature of decadent literature. In the introduction to Decadence: An Annotated Anthology by Jane Desmarais and Chris Baldick a concise yet basic definition of the form is given to the reader. “Decadence represented a hedonistic embrace of self-destructive indulgence and a glorification of our ephemeral…

The central theme in “The Great Gatsby” is decadence, symbolized by Gatsby shirts. The copious amounts of lavish shirts symbolize the extravagance and decadence of the Roaring Twenties era in the book, and the detailed descriptions enhance this theme. As Gatsby gives Daisy a tour of his mansion, “He t[akes] out a pile of shirts and beg[ins] throwing them one by one before us, shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel which los[e] their folds as they f[all] and cover the table in…

Victorian Decadence In, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” by Robert Louis Stevenson consists of Victorian Decadence or Fin de Siècle aspects throughout the story. One aspect of Victorian Decadence is the anti-Romantic belief in original sin and in the fallen man and nature. The omnipresence of evil, lack of health, balance, innocence, and the grotesque can belong with the first aspect, also. An example in “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” would be Mr. Utter son’s interest in the fallen…

Tom and Daisy‘s decadence is not calculated, but rather casual, normal, and a very ordinary part of life, like the air we breathe. Tom and Daisy, born into wealth, flaunt it almost unknowingly. Tom was known in university for his, “freedom with money,” and that freedom does not seem to have left him after school– he and Daisy go on a vacation in France for, “no particular reason,” and he brings down a, “string of polo ponies,” from Lake Forest, Illinois. Tom is often described as a, “brute of a…