Landscapes of Decadence: Literature and Place at the Fin de Siècle

By Alex Murray

The challenges posed by Decadence to Victorian moral conventions - particularly sexual - have been well documented, but this book makes the case for understanding Decadence as a response to the ways in which place was accorded moral value in the period. The book uses landscape as a key trope for exploring Decadent writing's approach to location and identity. Drawing on a wide range of fin-de-si cle literature organised around a series of locations from Naples to New York, Murray argues that Decadent writers developed a form of landscape and place-based writing using a series of stylistic features to challenge the increasing homogenisation of both place and literary culture. Decadence and the literature of the fin de si cle are re-framed as a politically-engaged form of landscape writing. This is an ambitious and richly researched study.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1107169666
• ISBN13: 9781107169661
• Release Date: December 2016
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 235 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.2" x 9.4"