Description
Book SynopsisThe decadentsincluding Wilde, Baudelaire, Huysmans, Pater, and Verlainefound in the Catholic Church a peculiar language that gave them a means of artistic and sexual expression. Hanson shows how Catholicism offered both the hysterical symptom and the last hope for paganism amid the dullness of Victorian puritanism and bourgeois materialism.
Trade ReviewWhoever comes to this book would do well to leave facile preconceptions behind...What is most refreshing about Hanson's approach is that he takes the spirituality [of the writers he examines] every bit as seriously as he does their aesthetic. Indeed he sees the two as inextricably bound...At a time when many people would rather be thought of as invalids than sinners, it is stimulating to read a work that takes seriously the notion that the urgings of the flesh can serve as a foundation for spiritual growth...That one makes the acquaintance, along the way, of Firbank's 'absurdly named Pope Tertius II' is only one among many added bonuses in a book as entertaining as it is learned. -- Frank Wilson * Philadelphia Inquirer *
Decadence and Catholicism examines the intersections of Catholic, aesthetic and erotic discourses, particularly in the works of J.K. Huysmans, Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde. There is a long chapter devoted to each of these three 'decadents,' as they have been familiarly described, a representation with which Hanson has no quarrel. He then considers several lesser-known authors: John Francis Bloxam, John Gray, André Raffolovich, Frederick William Rolfe, Montague Summers and Ronald Firbank. Hanson's precise, vivacious and often witty style enhances the quality of his overall scholarship. In his treatment of each writer, he mingles biography and summary with full, varied and deeply textured interpretation. -- Paul C. Doherty * America *
Hanson examines 19th-century aesthetes who found in the Roman Catholic Church an outlet for artistic and sexual expression. Many writers, such as Oscar Wilde, Charles Baudelaire, and Walter Pater, have been attracted to the improbable mixture of chaste devotion and homoeroticism that exists in the materialistic Church...Hanson studies these writings of sexual pleasure as an important element of religious experience as well as a source of inspiration for the writers. -- Leo Vincent Kriz * Library Journal *
Table of ContentsIntroduction The Dialectic of Shame and Grace Perfect Wagnerites Christianity as Paradis Artificiel Verlaine's Amour In Praise of Shame Huysmans Mysterique Unconscious Unction Conversion Hysteria Christianity by the Back Door Refined Thebaids Pater Dolorosa Pater Noster Renaissance and Resurrection Virgin Marius Monkish Miracles The Temptation of Saint Oscar Christ for Christ's Sake Ritualism and Dandyism Seduction and the Scarlet Woman The Confessional Unmasked Priests and Acolytes Fragrant Prayers Father Silverpoints Pio Corvo Saint Oscar Redivivus Conclusion Notes Index Illustrations The Wagnerites, by Aubrey Beardsley The Ascension of Saint Rose of Lima, from Aubrey Beardsley's Under the Hill (1895) Engraving of Charcot at the Salpêtrière Drawing of Saint Philip, from Charcot and Richer's Les Demoniaques dans l'Art (1887) The Crucifixion (1512-1516), by Matthias Grunewald (detail) Salome Dancing before Herod (1876), by Gustave Moreau "Height of Fashion" (1866), from Punch "Selling off!" (1851), from Punch John and Salomé by Aubrey Beardsley, from Oscar Wilde's Salomé (1892) "A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" (1877), from Punch
