Description
Book SynopsisPoisoned cigars, seductive apparitions, minds and empires in the last of their decline and the most notorious kiss in dramatic history decadent plays challenged the moral as much as the dramatic imagination of their own day, and continue to probe horizons of taste and the possibilities of stagecraft.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many writers reacted to urban modernity by embracing decadent themes and styles, and dramatists were no exception. Decadence offered these writers a framework for exploring nonconformist identities and beliefs that challenged behavioural norms as much as the desirability of modern progress. Decadent plays were at once behind the times in their celebration of antiquity, and forward-thinking in their staging of themes that have become all the more timely in the 21st century, including queerness, unconventional eroticism, and critiques of empire and industrial progress. Equally, the diversity of decadent drama cannot be pigeon-
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements Introduction - Adam Alston and Jane Desmarais Empire and the Ancient World Oscar Wilde, Salome (1891) Michael Field, The Race of Leaves (1901) Lesya Ukrainka, The Orgy: A Dramatic Poem (1913), trans. Vera Rich Oblivion and the Occult Rachilde, Madame La Mort (1891), trans. Kiki Gounaridou and Frazer Lively Remy de Gourmont, Lilith (1892), trans. Dan Rebellato Jean Lorrain, Ennoïa: A Triptych(1906), trans. Jennifer Higgins Leonid Andreyev, The Black Maskers (1908), trans. Clarence L. Meader & Fred Newton Scott Eroticism and Idolatry Gabriele D’Annunzio, La Gioconda (1898), trans. Arthur Symons Maurice Maeterlinck, Ardiane and Barbe Bleue or, The Useless Deliverance (1899), trans. Bernard Miall Izumi Kyoka, Kerria Japonica (1923), trans. M. Cody Poulton Djuna Barnes, The Dove (1923)
