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The Concept of Decadence in Fin de Siecle English Literature[1]

This essay explores the concept of decadence in English literature by the end of the nineteenth century. It argues that despite all the sensationalism associated with it, decadent literature was in fact a challenge to and a revision of the canonical notion of literature in the Western tradition. Samuel Taylor Coleridge once remarked that in the West "everyone is either a Platonist or an Aristotelian".121 Since the Greeks laid the foundation for Western literary thought, they serve as a convenient point of departure for our discussion. In ancient Greece the earliest standards of judgment in literary criticism are recorded in Aristophanes' comedy Frogs. The standards are: "skillful in art", and "wise counsel for the state".131 This observation is very similar to the ancient Chinese concept of literature in that it aims at striking a balance between artistic form and utilitarian content. 141 This is a crucial point, because the later development of literary theory is by and large a commentary on this balanced view of literature: an over emphasis on the former will result in a formalism, while an excessive