The Decadent movement in 19th century French literature used elaborate language to discuss taboo topics. Critics initially dismissed it, but some writers embraced the term. Decadent literature favored artifice over nature and was influenced by gothic fiction. Notable writers include Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Wilde, and Beardsley.
The Decadent movement in literature was a short-lived but influential style during the second half of the 19th century. It is most associated with French literature and Charles Baudelaire was perhaps the most important figure of the Decadent movement. Decadent writers used elaborate and stylized language to discuss taboo and often distasteful topics, such as death, depression, and deviant sexualities.
The word decadent arose in the literary world as a disparaging assessment by critics. As an adjective, with a small d, decadent denotes effinity and a decline of mores, such as would have caused the dissolution of the Roman Empire. French literary critics in the 19th century used the term to dismiss writers they deemed unimportant and simply wallowed in shocking subject matter, but some writers embraced the term and began to identify their own work as Decadent, proud of their opposition to everyday morality and blackberries.
Decadent literature includes poetry, novels, and short fiction. It was partly born out of the Romantic movement, which sought to provoke emotion in the reader, but also a revolt against the glorification of the nature of Romanticism. The Decadents favored art and artifice over the natural world, and in this sense were closely aligned with the Symbolist and Aesthetic movements of the same period. The gothic derivation of romantic fiction, especially the work of Edgar Allen Poe, was a major inspiration for the Decadents. Indeed, Baudelaire translated Poe’s works into French.
Decadent novelists include Joris-Karl Huysmans, Theophile Gautier and Octave Mirbeau. In addition to Baudelaire, notable poets of the genre include Arthur Rimbaud, Auguste Villiers de l’Isle-Adam and the comte de Lautréamont. French Decadents gained a following in English literary circles in the late 19th century, and some English writers adopted the Decadent style. Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley were the leading English decadents. Wilde famously incorporated Huysmans’ A Rebours into his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray; though he did not give the book a name, his readers undoubtedly recognized it from the description.
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