Instr:                  Sheila Roberts
Office:                CRT 597,   229-4534
e-mail:                svrob@uwm.edu
Office hours:    by appointment

Course Information:                     TR 3:00 to 4:15pm.     CRT 468

Course Description

"Nineteenth and Twentieth Century British and European Decadence"

 Decadence is defined so differently by different theorists that the contradictions make a simple definition problematic. Decadence is a term that, broadly speaking, had its greatest
expression in art, poetry, fiction, and aesthetic debate during a period of transition; i.e., it arose out of (but rejected) Romanticism and, and in its trends, experimentation, and world view,
moved toward Modernism and, in some cases, the Avant-garde. One may assert from clear evidence that the substratum of Decadence was crucial to the development of the modern novel.

In this course we will concentrate on the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the fin du siecle (or mal du siecle). We will explore a range of texts in English and in translation from the French, German and Italian. We will read novels, a selection of poetry and art work, and, later, the films of the turn-of-the-century and those later ones influenced by aspects of
Decadence. We will work toward gaining a full understanding of those elements that created an aesthetic movement termed La Decadence.

Required Reading (as available):
Against the Grain by J.K. Huysmans
The Confessions of a Young Man by George Moore
In Quest of Corvo by A.J.A. Symons
Fantazius Mallare by Ben Hecht
The Confessions of an Opium Eater by Thomas de Quincy
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
A Selection of Poetry by Rimbaud, Valery, Baudelaire, Swinburne, et al
A Discussion of the art of Egon Schiele, Gustave Klimpt, Alama Tadema, Eugene Delacroix, Edvard Munch, Toulouse Lautrec, and Max Beerbohm.
An Analysis of films from the early silent movies to later ones exploiting aspects of Decadence.

Grades will be apportioned as follows:
20% Five abstracts (1-2 pp. each) of any five fictional texts. The nature of the abstract will be explained in class.
10% One essay on an artwork (3 pp.)
10% One essay on a film (3 pp.)
20% A Class Presentation of 20 minutes on a poem or group of poems.
40% A final Paper of 8-l0pp.

Students who are regularly late, absent, incommunicative, run the risk of failing this course.

Religious holidays will be respected.