Handbook 1996 : Faculty of Arts (Volume 3 page 59)
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106-432 Decadence

Year 4 English.

Credit points: 16.7 4th year

Coordinator: Ken Ruthven.

Contact: One 2-hour seminar per week.

Timetable: First semester

Objectives:

Students who complete this subject successfully will have acquired:

• a first-hand acquaintance with the most significant examples of 'decadent' writing in English;
• an understanding of the controversies provoked by the original publication of 'decadent' writing and later re-considerations of it;
• an understanding of 'decadence' as both a stylistic and period concept in literary history.

Content:

This subject examines the ramifications of 'decadence' as a cultural category, focusing on literary production in the 1890s from the theoretical perspectives of the 1990s. Topics will include literary affinities with French decadence, theories of cultural pessimism and psychopathological degeneracy, and the fascination with femmes fatales and transgressive sexualities.

Assessment:

Written work of not more than 6,000 words.

Prescribed texts:

• Beckson K ed Aesthetes and Decadents of the 1890s Academy Chi Pubs
• Huysmans J-K Against Nature Penguin
• Jackson H The Eighteen Nineties Penguin
• Nordau M Degeneration intro Mosse Nebraska UP
• Sacher-Masoch Venus in Furs Blast
• Symons A The Symbolist Movement in Literature intro Ellmann Dutton
• Wells H G The Time Machine Heinemann
• Whistler J M The Gentle Art of Making Enemies Dover
• Wilde O The Picture of Dorian Gray Penguin
• Wilde O Salome illus Beardsley Dover

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Handbook 1996 : Faculty of Arts (Volume 3 page 59)

Status:          Official 1996
Date created:    Oct  9 1995
Last modified:   Oct  9 1995
Authorised by:   Academic Registrar
Email enquiries: Course_Information@registrar.unimelb.edu.au

Copyright © University of Melbourne 1995,1996.