Movements and schools
Decadence
Artifice, ennui and vertigo at the turn of the century.
A duke shut away in a suburban house has the shell of a living tortoise set with gold and jewels, and the animal dies of the weight: À rebours sums up decadence on its own. In the 1880s and 1890s, in Paris, London and Rome, writers preferred artifice to nature and rare sensation to action, and cultivated boredom as a mark of distinction. The movement produced dandies, portraits that age in place of their sitter, heroines who refuse assigned roles, and it fed the trials for offence against public morals.
works 6
- TaleCruel TalesContes cruelsAuguste de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam · 1883Stories in which satire of the industrial age and the fantastic tale answer one another.LiteraturePublic domain
- NovelAgainst NatureÀ reboursJoris-Karl Huysmans · 1884A lone man replaces the world with a setting of his own invention.LiteraturePublic domain
- NovelMonsieur VénusRachilde · 1884An aristocrat with a man's manners makes a poor young florist the object of her desire.Literature
- NovelThe Picture of Dorian GrayOscar Wilde · 1890A wish made before a canvas, and a painted mouth that is no longer quite the same.LiteraturePublic domain
- NovelThe Maidens of the RocksLe vergini delle rocceGabriele d'Annunzio · 1895Decadent novel in which an aristocrat seeks, among three sisters, the mother of a superman to come.LiteraturePublic domain
- NovelMonsieur de PhocasJean Lorrain · 1901A decadent duke pursues, from stone to face, a murky reflection that obsesses him.Literature