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Fin de Siècle
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- a major event that occurred in england in the late 19th century was the publication of darwin's origin of species 1859
- and then sometime later in the 1970s 1870s his another book of darwin's the descent of man
- these books together did what they called into question in a very dangerously convincing way two of the most deeply held beliefs of
- the victorians of the early period in the middle period one the idea that a benevolent god is in
- charge of the unfolding of history there is ultimately meaning in the world there is design in the world someone is in control who is looking out for us
- well darwin's work showed that ultimately random genetic mutation is what drives speciation
- and one can extrapolate from that to say that ultimately randomness is at play in the universe and
- randomness is what causes events to occur in the universe therefore there is no one in control
- god's providence does not pertain we can't really ultimately predict what's going to happen and there's ultimately no final
- metaphysical reason for what happens that's one two victorians of the early and middle time and even of course before in europe
- had a sense of of the great chain of being or some idea approaching the great chain of being meaning that if you can imagine the
- world as this this this chain with god at the very top the superior being and under god would be angels
- and then under angels would be humans and under humans would be certain kinds of animals all the way down to insects the idea being that there is an order to
- the divisions between species and that there's a hierarchy to this order that humans are superior to animals
- humans are different from and superior to animals well darwin in the descent of man argues that well no
- not not really that ultimately humans are of course descended from primates descended from apes so not only is there no distinction between
- human and animal there is nothing but animal humans are simply animals who develop self-consciousness
- we might say so if if the first idea i talked about randomness led to a fear in the late victorians of well there's
- there's no ultimate moral law this second idea the collapse of the distinction between human animals led to the possibility that we could
- degenerate back into an animal state that ultimately this idea that somehow civilization is this progress from the primitive to the
- sophisticated uh from to use a victorian term from the savage to the advanced darwin's ideas
- said no we are not progressing at all we are if anything facing the possibility we could degenerate
- back into an animal state so this again this these darwin books are just sort of flash points for for some of the
- primary doubts that occurred in the late victorian period this this this time of pessimism in the 1880s and 1890s
- this time of pessimism um in england is inseparable from what became known as the period the the end of the century period
- uh certainly there was a foundation moment in in france that's of course where we get the word from foundation of the century
- but in england i'm going to talk about three ways that that the foundation spirit pervaded some of the literature first and we can see this in a strange
- case of dr jekyll and mr hyde there was this feeling that humans are a struggle between what we can call the animal
- and the human and we see this played out in dr jekyll and mr hyde in in in pretty obvious ways that
- that that jekyll is trying to maintain this veneer of civilization sophistication science cleanliness morality but but deep within him
- part of him is this opposite impulsive of desire for for destruction deviance behaviors that go against the norms of civilization
- and of course the novel suggests at the very end the novella i should say that that jekyll has degenerated back into this
- earlier form this this more animalistic form that is that is driven by lust and violence
- so we see we see this idea of the double show up in jekyll and hyde but we also see it show up in oscar wilde's picture of dorian gray
- which of course we're not reading for the class where there is there is a character dorian gray who on the surface
- even though he commits all sorts of transgressions of social norms remains beautiful and healthy and charming while there's a portrait of him hidden
- up in his attic that takes on the consequences of all of his evil acts and ends up looking
- decrepit and sick and and quite hideous um and and so again we have this sense of like there
- there are two principles that work in the human and ultimately the the one that is associated with
- deviance is the one that will win out so and and this in this regard and jekyll and hyde and in dorian gray both this idea of
- deviance becomes a a major component of the fantasy act way of thinking about the world not only in terms of science but in
- other ways as well in in the 1880s there was passed in england a very stringent law against what was called gross indecency by males
- basically the law was passed to be able to punish men committing homosexual acts and unfortunately oscar wilde was
- brought up on charges of homosexuality and found guilty and had to spend two years in hard labor so some some have talked about how some
- critics have talked about how the the hyde character might be a sort of marker for for homosexual deviance again i'm talking about at at that time
- homosexuality would have been seen as deviant in mainstream victorian culture and oftentimes blackmail was part of this and then certainly
- um utterson believes that hyde is blackmailing jekyll as if as if hyde might possibly be a homosexual
- lover who is now blackmailing jekyll um so that kind of that kind of fear of homosexuality was was a major part of mainstream victorian
- culture during this time now this idea of deviant behavior um actually was celebrated in another aspect of the fantasy in england
- so i've just talked about the role of darwin in the fear of degeneration in connection to jekyll and hyde now moving to talk about
- the idea of decadence there were certain poets artists during this time who celebrated deviant behavior
- who valued really any kind of behavior that pushed against what what they saw as the two
- strict moral conventions of the victorian age so someone like oscar wilde would be a component a proponent of this decadent
- movement he wore very flashy clothing he wore capes very flamboyant behavior he was trying
- to push against gender stereotypes um even though he was obviously male he was he would cultivate um more feminine traditionally speaking
- kinds of behavior um of course owls was a homosexual he was not openly homosexual openly homosexual but um
- he certainly suggested that kind of behavior to the authorities they wouldn't have brought him up on charges connected to this kind of behavior this
- decadent behavior which again sort of valued artificiality over the organic valued on we over purpose
- valued beauty over morality a major influence on this decadent strain in the uk during the fantasy act period
- was a french novel by one huisman called abrebor which is often translated as against nature and the protagonist of this novel is
- cultivates this decadent life again he he values artifice over nature he values on we over purpose he values beauty over truth or goodness
- so out of this decadent movement grew a particular poetic a particular theory of what good writing should be and this theory of writing is sometimes
- known as aestheticism it's really a theory of art too aestheticism um and the in the com the basis of
- aestheticism is larp art art for our sake so this is the third thing i'm focusing on we've talked about degeneration fear degeneration
- talked about decadence as a sort of cultural style and now the idea of art for art's sake someone like wilde in the picture of
- dorian gray and in person being earnest seems to believe that art should not be about manifesting some kind of moral principle
- art should not be about reflecting some kind of objective truth but art should ultimately be about
- the pursuit of beauty and what does one get from art nothing but an appreciation of beauty this idea came from france via the
- poet's baudelaire and malamae a major theoretician of this idea in england was a
- our historian named walter pater who wrote a book called the renaissance which influenced uh wild to a great extent
- but we can see this this we can see this art for art's sake this aestheticism really growing out of to a large extent the pre-raphaelites if
- we remember that they really wanted to emphasize the vividness of color and and really powerful sensual detail
- just as much as morality and actually look at some of those paintings and we'll probably come away less with a sense of morality more of a sense of oh
- man look at those vivid wonderful colors so we see pre-raphaelitism kind of feeding into
- aestheticism and again to the idea that the role of art is simply to create beauty so those are the three three components
- of fantasy act end of century that i want us to think about fear of degeneration the cultivation of decadence as a
- lifestyle and an art that ultimately is connected to this cultivation of decadence art that does not set out to teach but
- ultimately just sets out to give pleasure
Zum Nachlesen
Fin de Sièclefür „Ende des Jahrhunderts“; auch Décadence = „Dekadentismus“) bezeichnet die künstlerischen Strömungen und das Lebensgefühl der letzten zwei Jahrzehnte des 19.
Das Bildnis des Dorian GrayDas Bildnis des Dorian Gray (Originaltitel: The Picture of Dorian Gray) ist der einzige Roman des irischen Schriftstellers Oscar Wilde.