The Importance Of Decadence In Literature

The Execution of Romanticism in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is one of the most thought-provoking Civil War stories written in the 19th century. In this story, Bierce digs his pen into philosophical questions about “the nature of time and the nature of abnormal psychology” (Logan 102). Yet because of the story’s multifaceted poignancy, scholarship has debated whether it is a Romantic yarn, a Gothic tale, or something abruptly more cynical. I will argue that “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is actually a transitional short story that explores how the rise of regionalism and realism during the Civil War led to the death of romanticism.

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW Emily Bronte 's novel 'Wuthering Heights ' did not depict just the Victorian life and society, but also it reflects the fundamental and crucial parts of human life, “this is the conflict between civilized and uncivilized life, between the rich and the poor between order and chaos, between storm and calm, between light and darkness, between wild vitality and modern sterility.’’(Nasir Uddin, 2014). Lord George Gordon Byron in his first poem “Childe Harold 's Pilgrimage” initiated the concept of Byronic Hero whose status is that of a social outcast with strong disgust for social norms and strong inclination to vengeance. Generally, it is some bitter experience of life that causes a Byronic hero to exile himself from the society, (Nasir Uddin, March 2014). Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights is a Byronic hero, as one critic states that the issues of race and social class in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights are main focuses for how Heathcliff is perceived and how they influence his actions (Malin, 2013).

In the novels Kindred by Octavia E. Butler and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, the immorality of slavery is constantly critiqued. Twain and Butler use the people's hypocrisy, selfishness, and gullibility to both explain the prevalence of slavery and display why it was perpetuated by otherwise good people. In a society as contradictory as the antebellum south, neither author had a lack of hypocritical traditions and beliefs to draw from in their writing. The antebellum south was ripe with hypocrisy that ingrained selective immorality which was used to justify slavery.

Oscar Wilde wrote his plays against the backdrop of the Victorian English society. It therefore helps to discuss the salient aspects of the Victorian society. Victorian England is known for many paradoxes -- glaring contrasts between the rich and the poor, insistence on morality on the one hand and the practice of cynicism on the other, blooming creativity pitted against blatant constriction, imperial grandeur since Britain was then ruling almost one fifth of the total surface of the earth and domestic squalor since the majority of people did not have decent means of livelihood, and finally collectivity dictated by tradition opposed to the rapidly developing individualism. The class system denied the talented members of the lower classes access to social and economic advancement. The upper classes alone had the privilege of working in the government, the armed forces, and the church, while trade was monopolized by the rising middle class.

John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman came to light in June 1969. It is clear that the novel tackles motifs such as love and intrigue, prototypical themes of the Victorian Novel. However, Fowles’s ultimate motive was not that of writing a conventional Victorian story but that of revealing an experimental narrative in which Victorian elements are explored from a perspective of the late sixties. Fowles presents us with a new reading of 1867, incorporating references of many of the events that took place during that gap of time.

Their efforts were not successful on a large scale because of the great momentum the movement had taken up in the end of the 19th century. The political cartoonist Thomas Nast, renowned for exposing the infamous misdeeds of Boss Tweed, created the cartoon depicted in Document A. It shows the great powers England, Germany, and Russia divvying up the world into their spoils bags, which parodies imperialism and shows its viewed immorality. Nast’s drawing is an attempt to detach the United States from similarities to the expansionist nations by showing the injustice of their actions. More blatant in desire against expansionism and imperialism was the American Anti-Imperialist league, who attempted to dissuade the Americans from continuing to pursue overseas ventures, especially in the Philippines.

In Othello, it is jealousy that ultimately leads to the downfall of three characters, Roderigo, Othello and Iago. " O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green eyed monster" (III.iii.163). Although, Othello is not the only play where William Shakespeare has made jealousy a central motivator. He did it in Macbeth also. Jealousy has many faces between these two plays and in both they lead to the downfall of characters.

The prescribed texts, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novella, “The Great Gatsby” (TGG), which warns us of the dangers of superficial relationships and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s (EBB) 1845-46 suite, “Sonnets from the Portuguese” (SP), which delivers a personal reflection on the frailty of love, allow a comparison which elicits a deeper understanding of the moral concerns of their respective eras. The composers convey these notions through the dynamics of relationships and differing perceptions of mortality, which rely upon societal influences and the ethos of an era. Ultimately, both composers critique the dominant values to reveal through comparison, the lack of fundamental values within these societies. Relational dynamics strongly reflect the moral concerns of an era to reveal dominant values, and consequently, highlight specific faults within a society.

Shelley faces a tangible evil, a person, while Dunbar faces an intangible one, a social concept. Both “England in 1819” and “Douglass” start by describing both their oppressors and the hardships the respective authors must undergo while under the rule of the villain’s tyranny. For Shelley it is “an old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King” and his successors (Shelley 1). The negative connotations and

History and definitions The term "popular culture" was coined in the 19th century or earlier. Traditionally, popular culture was associated with poor education and the lower classes, as opposed to the "official culture" and higher education of the upper classes. The stress in the distinction from "official culture" became more pronounced towards the end of the 19th century, a usage that became established by the interbellum period.

Edgar Allan Poe has had an exceptional influence on decadent writing including Charles Baudelaire’s works of literature. In many of Poe’s works, Poe portrays women in a dark light and had killed numerous amounts of women in his stories. Poe also wrote in one of his essays that he found the death of a beautiful woman in literature to be the most poetic topic to be written about. His attitude of dying women was passed on into the decadent school of literature and thought. I am going to be analyzing Poe’s work and show how the misogynistic attitudes in his stories were passed on in the decadent school of thought particularly in Baudelaire’s poems.