COLT 49.05 Decadence, Degeneration and the Fin de Siecle
The end of the nineteenth century saw the emergence of genuinely mass readerships, but it also saw the development of literary forms that pitted themselves against the commercialization and homogenization of literary culture. In this course we will look at so-called decadent writers and artists who imagined heightened forms of aesthetic experience in order to displace the political and sexual norms of their societies. We will also examine the controversies their work evoked and the theories of degeneration, deviance and abnormality that were frequently deployed to explain their excesses. Texts will include Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, J.K. Huysmans’s Against Nature, Marie Corelli’s Wormwood, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Instructor
McCann
Cross Listed Courses
ENGL 72.02