Decadence

-

 

Decadence in literature refers to a movement or style that shows a love for art, beauty, and luxury, often mixed with a sense of decline, moral weakness, and loss of traditional values. Writers linked to decadence often focus on emotions, dreams, imagination, and the darker sides of human experience. They reject the common ideas of hard work, progress, or moral duty, and instead explore beauty for its own sake.

Main Features of Decadent Literature

Focus on Beauty and Art – Decadent writers believe art should exist only to give pleasure and beauty, not to teach morals.
Rejection of Society’s Rules – They often break traditional rules of right and wrong and show interest in things considered unnatural or forbidden.
Use of Rich and Decorative Language – The style is often filled with detailed descriptions, unusual words, and musical rhythm.
Themes of Decline and Decay – Many works show characters or societies that are falling apart, both physically and morally.
Dreamlike and Strange Settings – The settings are often unreal, fantastic, or filled with symbols.

Famous Writers and Works

Charles Baudelaire – His poetry collection "Les Fleurs du mal" ("The Flowers of Evil") is seen as the beginning of the decadent movement.
Oscar Wilde – His novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" shows the life of a man who lives for beauty and pleasure, ignoring moral values.
Joris-Karl Huysmans – His novel "À rebours" ("Against Nature") became a symbol of decadence with its story of a man who lives in isolation, surrounded by art and strange experiments.

Importance in Literature

Decadence was important because it challenged traditional ideas about what literature should be. It opened the door for modern writers to explore new styles and deeper emotions. Though many critics attacked decadent writers for being too self-centered or immoral, their works influenced later movements like modernism and symbolism.


Popular posts from this blog

"Cry, the Peacock": A Detailed Summary and Analysis

-
Introduction Cry, the Peacock is Anita Desai ’s first novel. It was published in 1963. The novel explores a woman’s emotional struggles and her experience of loneliness and despair. The story focuses on Maya, the main character, and her troubled marriage. She suffers from isolation and mental instability. Anita Desai presents the fragility of the human mind and the difficulties of marriage. Brief Summary The novel takes place in post-independence India. However, the story focuses more on personal struggles than political events. Maya is a young woman who lives with her husband, Gautama. Gautama is a practical and intellectual man. He does not show emotions, and he does not understand Maya’s feelings. Maya is sensitive and emotional. She wants love and affection, but Gautama does not give her the attention she needs. Maya feels lonely and neglected. She spends most of her time thinking about her life. She creates fantasies in her mind to escape her loneliness. One important symbol in t...
Read more

Phonetics and Phonology : Definition and difference

-
Phonetics and phonology are two closely related subfields of linguistics that both deal with the sounds of speech, but they focus on different aspects of these sounds. Phonetics is the study of the physical properties of speech sounds, specifically how they are produced, transmitted, and perceived. It is concerned with the actual sounds themselves—how they are articulated, how they travel through the air as sound waves, and how they are received by the ear and processed by the brain. Phonetics is typically divided into three subfields: 1. Articulatory Phonetics : This branch focuses on the physical production of speech sounds. It looks at the movements of the vocal organs (such as the tongue, lips, and vocal cords) and how these movements create different speech sounds. It studies how different places and manners of articulation (e.g., voicing, nasality, consonant types like stops or fricatives) contribute to the production of speech. 2. Acoustic Phonetics : This branch is concerned w...
Read more

Dhwani Theory by Anandvardhana: an introduction

-
Anandvardhana was a Kashmiri court poet and literary critic, honored with the title of Rajanak during King Avantivarman's reign.  Anandavardhana authored the Dhvanyāloka , or A Light on Suggestion (dhwani), a work articulating the philosophy of "aesthetic suggestion" (dhwani, vyañjanā). Anandavardhana is credited with creating the dhwani theory. He wrote that dhwani (meaning sound, or evocation) is the "soul" or "essence" (ātman) of poetry (kavya).  Anandavardhana said, "When the poet writes, he creates a eloquent field of emotions." To understand the poetry, the reader or hearer must be on the same wavelength. Important points~ •Dhvani theory is a theory of suggestion that is considered to be the soul of poetry.  •The theory of Dhvani is a major contribution to Sanskrit literary theory.  •The theory of Dhvani suggests that the main goal of good poetry is to evoke a mood or "flavor" (rasa).  •The theory of Dhvani suggests that this...
Read more