The fin de siècle was a period of transition and transformation. In Britain, the 1890s-1910s serve as hybrid decades representing both the culmination point of the Victorian age and its decay as the ‘long nineteenth century’ came to an abrupt end with the start of the First World War in 1914. Against this social and political backdrop significant experimentations in form (literary, artistic) and ways of living (sexuality, gender dynamics, economies of desire) were taking place that would shape the cultures of modernism in the early 20^th century. These experiments were frequently caught between a return to classical styles and more avant garde approaches. Such tensions between conventional and traditional understandings of identity and a fluidity of selves resonate today with contemporary debates about selfhood and sexuality. This module takes this time of anxiety and ambiguity and seeks to read it through the specific nature of decadence and its relationship to / engagement with / reinvention of notions of masculinity. The debates related to masculinity (and femininity) in this period ranged over issues of class, moral corruption, sexology, new theories of homosocial and (male/female) homosexual identities and behaviours, and the figure of the middle-class male professional vs the aristocratic / man of leisure dandy. Through a series of textual and artistic encounters, “Decadent Men, 1890s-1910s” explores canonical works and writers such as Wilde, Hardy and Forster alongside representations of masculinity in periodical culture, political and social movements and figures such as the New Woman, innovations in the visual arts, music, and theatre to interpret and analyse the diverse range of masculinities projected and performed during the period.

• identify key elements of fin-de-siècle culture in relation to decadence and masculinity, gender and identity and place this into the context of the period’s relationship with the late-Victorian age and the cultural climate of the early years of the twentieth century;
• discuss in a critically informed manner a diverse body of literary and cultural texts from the fin de siècle in the context of wider Victorian debates about decadence, masculinity, femininity, decadence, degeneration, literary style, art, progress, and sexuality;
• relate aesthetic and generic issues with social/political/ethical ones and vice versa;
• critically assess the ways in which the concept of masculinity has been constructed both in late-nineteenth-century discourses (such as degeneration theory; aestheticism) and in current critical debates;
• develop a literary and critical style which is attuned to and develops in response to the artistic product under analysis.

Two one hour lectures per week providing a contextual framework/overview in advance of a one-hour weekly seminar focusing on individual themes/texts/authors as outlined in the weekly schedule. The module aims to encourage students to think about the wider issues involved in the creation of literary and cultural texts within the context of a specific period of the late nineteenth century, and to do so via detailed engagement with a range of primary cultural sources. The seminar format is intended to encourage active student engagement with such materials. Seminars will include small group discussions as well as plenary feedback and engagement. The exception to this is in Week 4 where lectures and seminar will be replaced by a visit to the AC-NMW to view relevant art works.

• research skills: primary and secondary materials, including engagement with publication forms such as periodicals; online resources – i.e. Victorian databases / archives: for example, students will be encouraged in their seminar discussions and written work to engage with the full online database of all issues of The Yellow Book via the ‘yellow 90s’ website etc; engagement with cultural experiences of viewing/reading – through session at the AC-NMW exploring relevant collections
• reading/interpretation skills: critical and contextual reading and analysis, both of literary and visual texts
• oral/presentation skills: seminar engagement and discussion among peers, summarising and organising key aspects of arguments/debates and feeding back to larger plenary discussion
• writing: enhanced capabilities in producing clear, well argued, critically informed perspectives on themes/texts/writers, particularly including styles and registers in relation to both critical and creative writing approaches.

Assessment for this module seeks to engage students’ learning within the context of not only the themes/topics of the module but also the fundamental aesthetic and stylistic issues of performance, masquerade and rhetoric. There are therefore two modes of assessment:

1. Creative assignment of 1,000 words: a piece of decadent writing in the form of a review / engagement with a work of art from the period written in the style of a decadent periodical with critical commentary = 30%
2. Essay: 2,200 words on a topic covering at least two texts from the module = 70%

Weekly outline (* indicates week with optional film viewing)

1. Introductory lectures on: Peacocks, Dandies and the Decay of Masculinity. Seminar focus on: Decadent Theories: Arthur Symons, “The Decadent Movement in Literature” (1893); Max Nordau, extracts from Degeneration (1892); selected 1890s poetry; extracts from Richard Le Gallienne, The Romantic ’90s (1925)
2. Canonical and Domestic Decadence: Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four (1890); George and Weedon Grossmith, Diary of a Nobody (1892)  
3. Decadent Aesthetics and the Male Gaze: Art Criticism: James McNeill Whistler, “Mr Whistler’s Ten O’Clock” (1885); George Moore “Whistler” and “Sex in Art” (Modern Painting, 1893) and “Art for the Villa” (Impressions and Opinions, 1891)
4. Special session: looking at the “French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism” and “Art in Britain Around 1900” galleries in the Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales
5. Masculinity as Masquerade: Aubrey Beardsley, illustrations for Lysistrata, The Savoy, and The Yellow Book (1894-97); Max Beerbohm, “A Defence of Cosmetics” (1894)
6. Women Writers Diagnosing Male Decadence: Vernon Lee [Violet Page] “Amour Dure” and “A Wicked Voice” from Hauntings (1890) and George Egerton [Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright] “A Cross Line”, “An Empty Frame” and “Gone Under” from Keynotes (1893) and Discords (1894)
7. Inescapable Decadence? Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure (1895)*
8. Idealising Decadence: Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), “The Decay of Lying” (1890)*
9. Scholarly Decadence: M. R. James, selected stories (1909-1919); Max Beerbohm, “Enoch Soames” (1916)
10. Decadence, Desire and Identity: E. M. Forster, Maurice (written in 1914, not published until 1971)*; extracts from Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897)

Individual works:

Conan Doyle, Arthur The Sign of Four (1890; Penguin Classics, 2001)

Forster, E. M. Maurice (1914/1971; Penguin Classics, 2005)

Grossmith, George and Weedon, Diary of a Nobody (1892; Penguin Classics, 1999)

Hardy, Thomas, Jude the Obscure (1895; Penguin Classics, 2003)

James, M.R. Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories (Penguin Classics, 2006)

Anthologies – the Schaffer contains many of the primary texts to be discussed in seminars:

Ledger, Sally and Roger Luckhurst (eds), The Fin de Siècle: A Reader in Cultural History c. 1880-1900 (Oxford University Press, 2004)

Schaffer, Talia (ed), Literature and Culture at the Fin de Siècle (Pearson Educational, 2007)