Decadence and Catholicism
Harvard University Press (Verlag)
978-0-674-19446-5 (ISBN)
Romantic writers had found in Christianity a poetic cult of the imagination, an assertion of the spiritual quality of beauty in an age of vulgar materialism. The decadents, a diverse movement of writers, were the climax and exhaustion of this romantic tradition. In their art, they enacted the romance of faith as a protest against the dreariness of modern life. Ellis Hanson teases out two strands--eroticism and aestheticism--that rendered the decadent interest in Catholicism extraordinary. More than any other literary movement, the decadents explored the powerful historical relationship between homoeroticism and Roman Catholicism. Why, throughout history, have so many homosexuals been attracted to Catholic institutions that vociferously condemn homosexuality? This perplexing question is pursued in this elegant and innovative book.
Late-nineteenth-century aesthetes found in the Church a peculiar language that gave them a means of artistic and sexual expression. The brilliant cast of characters that parades through this book includes Oscar Wilde, Charles Baudelaire, J.-K. Huysmans, Walter Pater, and Paul Verlaine. Art for these writers was a mystical and erotic experience. In decadent Catholicism we can glimpse the beginnings of a postmodern valorization of perversity and performativity. Catholicism offered both the hysterical symptom and the last hope for paganism amid the dullness of Victorian puritanism and bourgeois materialism.
Ellis Hanson is Assistant Professor of English at Cornell University.
Introduction The Dialectic of Shame and Grace Perfect Wagnerites Christianity as Paradis Artificiel Verlaine's Amour In Praise of Shame Huysmans Mysterique Unconscious Unction Conversion Hysteria Christianity by the Back Door Refined Thebaids Pater Dolorosa Pater Noster Renaissance and Resurrection Virgin Marius Monkish Miracles The Temptation of Saint Oscar Christ for Christ's Sake Ritualism and Dandyism Seduction and the Scarlet Woman The Confessional Unmasked Priests and Acolytes Fragrant Prayers Father Silverpoints Pio Corvo Saint Oscar Redivivus Conclusion Notes Index Illustrations The Wagnerites, by Aubrey Beardsley The Ascension of Saint Rose of Lima, from Aubrey Beardsley's Under the Hill (1895) Engraving of Charcot at the Salpêtrière Drawing of Saint Philip, from Charcot and Richer's Les Demoniaques dans l'Art (1887) The Crucifixion (1512-1516), by Matthias Grunewald (detail) Salome Dancing before Herod (1876), by Gustave Moreau "Height of Fashion" (1866), from Punch "Selling off!" (1851), from Punch John and Salomé by Aubrey Beardsley, from Oscar Wilde's Salomé (1892) "A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" (1877), from Punch
Erscheint lt. Verlag | 3.3.1998 |
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Zusatzinfo | 10 halftones |
Verlagsort | Cambridge, Mass |
Sprache | englisch |
Maße | 156 x 235 mm |
Gewicht | 535 g |
Themenwelt | Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Christentum |
Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik | |
Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturgeschichte | |
ISBN-10 | 0-674-19446-2 / 0674194462 |
ISBN-13 | 978-0-674-19446-5 / 9780674194465 |
Zustand | Neuware |
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