Overview

The challenges posed by Decadence to Victorian moral conventions - particularly sexual - have been well documented, but this book makes the case for understanding Decadence as a response to the ways in which place was accorded moral value in the period. The book uses landscape as a key trope for exploring Decadent writing's approach to location and identity. Drawing on a wide range of fin-de-siècle literature organised around a series of locations from Naples to New York, Murray argues that Decadent writers developed a form of landscape and place-based writing using a series of stylistic features to challenge the increasing homogenisation of both place and literary culture. Decadence and the literature of the fin de siècle are re-framed as a politically-engaged form of landscape writing. This is an ambitious and richly researched study.

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9781107169661

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'In Landscapes of Decadence, Murray argues that writing of landscapes - rural or urban - provided Decadent authors with a way of exploring not only location, but identity ... Murray's work ... convincingly examines the adaptability and evolution of Decadence during the period.' Sally Blackburn, The British Society for Literature and Science Reviews (www.bsls.ac.uk)

'In Landscapes of Decadence, Murray argues that writing of landscapes - rural or urban - provided Decadent authors with a way of exploring not only location, but identity ... Murray's work ... convincingly examines the adaptability and evolution of Decadence during the period.' Sally Blackburn, The British Society for Literature and Science Reviews (www.bsls.ac.uk) 'Alex Murray generously places Landscapes of Decadence: Literature and Place at the Fin de Siecle within the context of current studies on Decadent British writers, but he offers a fresh perspective on Decadent writing. His work beautifully demonstrates the richness and continuing appeal of a movement that epitomizes stylistic experimentation.' Martha Vicinus, Victorian Studies Journal 'In Landscapes of Decadence, Murray argues that writing of landscapes - rural or urban - provided Decadent authors with a way of exploring not only location, but identity ... Murray's work ... convincingly examines the adaptability and evolution of Decadence during the period.' Sally Blackburn, The British Society for Literature and Science Reviews (www.bsls.ac.uk) 'Alex Murray generously places Landscapes of Decadence: Literature and Place at the Fin de Siecle within the context of current studies on Decadent British writers, but he offers a fresh perspective on Decadent writing. His work beautifully demonstrates the richness and continuing appeal of a movement that epitomizes stylistic experimentation.' Martha Vicinus, Victorian Studies Journal

Author Information

Alex Murray teaches in the School of English at Queen's University Belfast. His research focuses mainly on Decadence and the writing of the fin de siècle, literature and place (particularly London, New York and Paris), travel writing, modernism, and literary and critical theory. Most recently he has co-edited Decadent Poetics: Literature and Form at the British Fin de Siècle (2013), and has written a number of articles on the relationship between Decadence and the literature of the early-twentieth century in MFS Modern Fiction Studies and Modernism/modernity. His monograph, Giorgio Agamben (2010), is printed in four languages.

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