ENL 6256:
TOWARD MODERNISM:
COLONIZING MONSTROSITY
IN THE VICTORIAN FIN DE SIÈCLE
Dr. C. Snodgrass; 4336 Turlington; 376-8362; [email protected]
© Chris Snodgrass 2010
SYLLABUS: READING SCHEDULE
REQUIRED TEXTS (books available at Orange & Blue Textbooks and ABE Books online):
Walter Pater, The Renaissance, ed. Donald L. Hill (California).
Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Poems (Dover)
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan (Dover)
Aubrey Beardsley, Salome: Aubrey Beardsley and Oscar Wilde (Dover)
Aubrey Beardsley, The Best Works of Aubrey Beardsley (Dover)
M. L. Rosenthal, ed., Selected Poems and Two Plays of W. B. Yeats (Collier)
Six photocopy supplements — buy at Orange & Blue Textbooks
SCHEDULE
Week 1
NO CLASS
Week 2
Walter Pater and a ‘Modern’ Renaissance [The
Renaissance; c. 220 pages + notes]
Introduction, “Walter Pater (1839–1894)”
Walter Pater — Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873)
Week 3
Victorianism, the ‘Decadence,’ and the Grotesque [Packet #1: c. 250
pages; Packet #2: Optional 30-page Chronology]
NO CLASS (Martin Luther King Day), BUT the following assigned background
reading:
“Facts, Themes, and Principles of Victorian Culture”
“A Few of the Dichotomies that Haunted Victorians”
Karl Beckson, “Preface to Second Edition,” “Preface,” “Introduction,” from
Aesthetes and Decadents of the 1890s (1965; Chicago: Academy Chicago,
1981), vii–xliv
Holbrook Jackson, “Fin de Siècle — 1890–1900,” “Personalities and Tendencies,”
“The Decadence,” The Eighteen-Nineties (London: Richards, 1913), 13–71
Sandra Siegel, “Literature and Degeneration: The Representation of ‘Decadence,’”
Degeneration: The Dark Side of Progress, eds. J. Edward Chamberlin and
Sander L. Gilman (New York: Columbia UP, 1985: 199–219
Stutfield, Hugh E. M., “Tommyrotics.” Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 157.956
(June 1895): 833-45
Geoffrey Harpham, “Chapter One: Formation, Deformation, and Reformation: An
Introduction to the Grotesque,” from On The Grotesque: Strategies of
Contradiction in Art and Literature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1982),
3–22 (plus 8 illustrations)
Introduction, “John Ruskin (1819–1900)”
John Ruskin — from “Of Truth of Space,” Modern Painters I
(1843): 327–35; from “The Naturalist Ideal,” from “The
Grotesque Ideal,” and from “Of the Pathetic Fallacy,”
Modern Painters III (1856): 111–19, 130–35, 201–209;
from “The Nature of Gothic,” Stones of Venice II (1851):
180–215
“Chronicle of Some Important Events Bearing on Victorian Age
& Aftermath” (Optional)
Week 4
Oscar Wilde: The Artist as Critic [Packet #2: c. 125 pages; plus Wilde
books: c. 150 pages]
Introduction: “Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)”
Oscar Wilde —
Poetry: “Impression du Matin,” “The Sphinx,” “The Ballad
of Reading Gaol,” “The Harlot’s House”
Fiction: “Birthday of the Infanta,” “The Fisherman and His
Soul,” Houses of Pomegranates (1891), and, Vol. 12
of The First Collected Edition of the Works of Oscar
Wilde (1908–22), [30]–129
Criticism: “The Critic As Artist,” Nineteenth Century (July
and September 1890), and in Intentions (1891),
[98]–224
Drama: Lady Windermere’s Fan, v–52
SSSS PROJECT SELECTION DUE SSSS
Week 5
The ‘Feminine Ideal’ and its Deconstruction [Packet #2: c. 110 pages;
Packet #3: c. 55 pages]
Introduction: “Ernest Dowson (1867–1900)”
Ernest Dowson —
Poetry: “Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohere longem,”
“Nuns of the Perpetual Adoration,” “My Lady April,”
“Yvonne of Brittany,” “Benedictio Domini,” “Non Sum
Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae,” “Cease smiling,
Dear! a little while be sad,” “Epigram,” “Dregs”
Dowson — Fiction: “An Orchestral Violin,” Macmillan’s
Magazine (August 1891) and Dilemmas, 51–85
Introduction: Virginia Blain, “Mathilde Blind (1841–96)”
Mathilde Blind— “The Russian Student’s Tale,” “A Carnival Episode,” Dramas in
Miniature (London: Chatto and Windus, 1891): 1–11, 50–59
Introduction: “Victoria Cross [“Vivian” Annie Sophie Cory] (1868–1952)”
Victoria Cross [“Vivian” Annie Sophie Cory] — “Theodora, A Fragment,” The
Yellow Book 4 (January 1895): [156]–188
Introduction: “Vernon Lee [Violet Paget] (1856–1935)”
Vernon Lee [Violet Paget] — “Prince Alberic and the Snake Lady,”
from The Yellow Book 10 (July 1896) and republished in
Supernatural Tales (1902), 19–72
Week 6
George Egerton and the ‘New Woman’ [Packet #3: c. 145 pages; 2
images]
Introduction: “The New Woman”
Introduction: “Eliza Lynn Linton (1822–1898)”
Eliza Lynn Linton—“The Girl of the Period,” Saturday Review (14 March 1868):
356–60; “The Wild Women As Social Insurgents,” Nineteenth Century 30
(October 1891): 596–605
Introduction: “Ouida [Marie Louise de la Ramée] (1839–1908)
Ouida [Marie Louise de la Ramée], “The New Woman,” North American Review
158 (1894): 610–15
Introduction: “George Egerton (1859–1945)”
George Egerton [Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright] — Martha
Vicinus, “Introduction,” pp. v–xix; “A Cross Line,”
Keynotes (London: Mathews & Lane, Bodley Head, 1893),
9–44; “The Little Gray Glove,” Keynotes (London:
Mathews & Lane, Bodley Head, 1893), 99–122;
“Wedlock,” Discords (London: John Lane, Bodley Head,
1894), 115–44
Punch cartoons (see my website): “SheNotes” (Vol. 106),
“SheNotes Reclining” (Vol. 106)
Week 7
Ella D’Arcy & Modern Romance [Packet #3: c. 35 pages; Packet #4: c. 125
pages]
Introduction: “Ella D’Arcy (1856?–1939)”
Ella D’Arcy —“Irremediable,” Yellow Book 1 (April 1894):
87–108, and Monochromes (London: John Lane, Bodley
Head, 1895), 87–120; “The Pleasure-Pilgrim,” Yellow Book
5 (April 1895) and Monochromes (1895), 165–218; “A
Marriage,” Yellow Book 11 (October 1896): 309–42; “The
Death Mask,” The Yellow Book 10 (July 1896): 265–74
——BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE ——
Week 8
Rosamund Marriott Watson and the Grotesque
[Packet #4, c. 20 pages]
Introduction: “Graham R. Tomson (1860–1911)”
Virginia Blain, “Graham R. Tomson [Rosamund Marriott Watson] (1860–1911)”
Graham R. Tomson [Rosamund Marriott Watson]—“Old Pauline,” “Ballad of the
Bird-Bride,” “A Ballad of the Were-Wolf,” “Vespertilia,” “Hic Jacet,”
“Children of the Mist,” “Epitaph,” “The Cage,” “Nirvana.”
Week 9
Arthur Symons: The Artist as Symbolist Flâneur [Packet #4: c. 105
pages; Packet #5: c. 200 pages]
Introduction: “Charles Baudelaire (1821–67)”
Charles Baudelaire —“The Painter of Modern Life” (1863), 1–40.
R. A. Walker, Forward to “The Art of Hoarding,” 91
Aubrey Beardsley — “The Art of Hoarding,” New Review (July 1894): 93–94
Introduction: “Arthur Symons (1865–1945)”
Arthur Symons —
Poetry: “Eyes,” “Javanese Dancers,” “Prologue: Before the
Curtain,” “Prologue: In the Stalls,” “To a Dancer,”
“Renée,” “Hallucination: I,” “Nerves,” “Bianca: I.
Bianca”
Fiction: “Esther Kahn” (c. 1890), Spiritual Adventures
(London: Constable, 1905), 35–53
Criticism: “Preface: Being a Word on Behalf of Patchouli,”
from Silhouettes (2nd edition, 1896) and “Preface to 2nd
Edition of London Nights” (1896); “The World as
Ballet,” Studies in Seven Arts (1906), 244–46; “Music
Halls and Ballet Girls” (1890s; TS Princeton,
unpublished until Beckson, ed., Memoirs, 1977),
109–114; “Sex and Aversion” (1890s; TS Princeton,
unpublished until Memoirs, 1977), 137–40
Symons — The Symbolist Movement in Literature (1896–99;
London: Constable, 1908), i–vii, 1–193
—— STATEMENT OF THESIS DUE ——
Week 10
Spring Break, No Class
Week 11
Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, and Salome [16 images; Packet #5: c.
20 pages; Salome: Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley (Dover), c. 99 pages,
including 20 images]
A few historical images of Fatal Women (via the various links noted below, or via a
Powerpoint slide show [if you have Powerpoint software] by clicking the
following link: SalomeJudithPaintings.ENL6256.S11, then the slide show tab,
then “From Beginning.” The order should be the same as below, and if
there’s a glitch, click previous on the slide.): Mantegna, Judith and
Holofernes (1495); Giorgione, Judith (1504); Caravaggio, Judith &
Holofernes (c.1595), Salome with the Head of the Baptist (1609);
Gentileschi, Judith Beheading Holofernes (c. 1611-12), Judith Beheading
Holofernes (c. 1620); Rubens, Judith with the Head of Holofernes (c. 1616);
Moreau, The Tatooed Salome (1875), Salome Dancing before Herod (1876);
Stuck, Sin (1891), Sin (1893), Sin (1893, version 2), Sin (1899), Sin (1900),
Kiss of the Sphinx (1895), Salome (1906); and Klimt, Judith I (Czech
Republic 1901), Judith I (Vienna 1901), Judith II (1909)
Oscar Wilde — Salome (Dover)
Chris Snodgrass, “Wilde’s Salome: Turning ‘the Monstrous
Beast’ into a Tragic Hero,” Oscar Wilde: The Man, His
Writing, and His World, ed. Robert N. Keane (New York:
AMS Press, 2003): 183–96
Introduction: “Aubrey Beardsley (1872–1898)”
Aubrey Beardsley — Salome pictures in Salome: Oscar Wilde and
Aubrey Beardsley; also, from Best of Beardsley, pp. 3–4, 18,
24–39
Week 12
Victorian Femininity and The Beardsley Woman
[c. 95 website images; Best of Beardsley, c. 45 pictures]
Nineteenth-Century Paintings (via the various links noted below, or via a
Powerpoint slide show [if you have Powerpoint software] by clicking the
following link: 19thCenturyPaintingLandscape.ENL6256.S11, then the slide
show tab, then “From Beginning.” The order should be the
same as below, and if there’s a glitch, click previous on the
slide.):
Ingres, La Grande Odalisque (1814); Millais, Mariana
(1851); Hunt, The Hireling Shepherd (1851), The Lady of
Shalott (1889-92); Morris, Queen Guenevere (1857); Sandys,
Morgan le Fay (1864); Burne-Jones, The Beguiling of Merlin
(1874), The Annunciation (1879), King Cophetua and the
Beggar Maid (1884), The Depths of the Sea (1887), Depths of
the Sea, version 2; Leighton, The Fisherman and the Siren
(1856-58), Flaming June (1895), The Garden of the
Hesperides (c. 1892); Moore, Dreamers (1879-82); Long,
The Babylonian Marriage Market (1875), The Chosen Five
(1885); Manet, Olympia (1863), Woman with a Parrot
(1866), Nana (1877); Moreau, Samson and Delilah (1881-82), The Poet and
the Siren (1894); Stanhope, Eve Tempted
(1877, Private Collection); Alma-Tadema, In
the Tepidarium (1881); Collier, Lilith (1887);
Rops, La Femme au Lorgnon, or La Buveuse
d’Absinthe (1870), Pornokrates, or La Dame
au cochon (1879); Godward, The Betrothed
(1892), Mischief and Repose (1895), The
Delphic Oracle (1998); Waterhouse,
Pandora (1896), Ariadne (1898); Draper, The
Gates of Dawn (1900); Dicksee, La Belle
Dame Sans Merci (1902); and Poynter, The Cave of the Storm Nymphs
(1903)
Ian Fletcher, “A Grammar of Monsters,” ELT 30.2 (1987): 141–63.
Chris Snodgrass, “Beardsley’s Oscillating Spaces: Play, Paradox, and the
Grotesque,” Reconsidering Aubrey Beardsley, ed. Robert Langenfeld (1989),
[19]–52
Aubrey Beardsley — Best Works of Aubrey Beardsley, pp. 20,
23, 40–41, 43–46, 49, 54–55, 58–61, 75, 78, 92–93,
115–116, 118, 130–32, 141–42, 149–50, 152–53,
156–60
Other Beardsley and Punch cartoons (via the various links
noted below, or via a Powerpoint slide show [if you
have Powerpoint software] by clicking the following
link: BeardsleyPunchPortrait.ENL6256.S11, then the
slide show tab, then “From Beginning.” The order
should be the same as below, and if there’s a glitch,
click previous on the slide.): Poster for a ‘Comedy of Sighs’ (1894) [black &
white], “Ars Postera” (Vol. 106), Mrs. Patrick Campbell (1894), Design for a
Poster Advertising The Spinster’s Scrip (1895)
Punch cartoons: “Imitation is Sincerest Flattery” (Vol 98, p. 162), “Sterner Stuff”
(Vol. 101), “A Bird of Prey” (Vol. 102), New Woman with Flowerpot Hat
(Vol 103, p. 49), Woman with Peacock Fan
(Vol 104, p. 21), “Descent Into the
Maelstrom” (Vol 104, p. 38), “A Terrible
Turk” (Vol. 104), “Modern Labor” (Vol.
104), “What It Will Soon Come To” (Vol.
106), “Donna Quixote” (Vol. 106), “Our
Decadents (Female)” (Vol. 106),
“Passionate Female Literary Types” (Vol.
106), “We’ve Not Come To That Yet” (Vol.
107), “A Little ‘New Woman’” (Vol. 107),
“Quid Est Pictura? — Veritas Falsa” (Vol.
107, p. 47), “A ‘New Woman’” (Vol. 107, p.
111), “The Minx” (Vol. 107), “By
Mortarthurio Whiskersley” (Vol. 107), New
Woman Riding Bike (Vol. 108), “Sylvia
Scarlet” (Vol. 108), “The New Woman”
(Vol. 108, p. 282), “Presiding Deity, 1895” (Vol. 109), “La Belle Dame Sans
Merci” (Vol. 109, p. 268), “The New Expression” (Vol. 110), “I Do Not
Bike” (Vol. 112, p. 17)
—— OUTLINE DUE ——
Week 13
Aubrey Beardsley, Modernist Dandy of the Grotesque [70 images;
Packet #5: c. 20 pages; Best of Beardsley, c. 90 pictures; Packet #6: c. 45
pages]
Nineteenth-Century Paintings (via the various links noted below, or via a
Powerpoint slide show [if you have Powerpoint software] by clicking the
following link: 19thCenturyGrotesquePortrait.ENL6256.S11, then the slide
show tab, then “From Beginning.” The order should be the same as below,
and if there’s a glitch, click previous on the slide.):
Ford Madox Brown, “Take Your Son, Sir!”
(1851-92) [unfinished]; Moreau, Oedipus and the
Sphinx (1864); D. G. Rossetti, Ecce Ancilla Domini
(1850), The Bower Meadow (1870-71), Astarte
Syriaca (1877), La Pia de’ Tolomei (1868-80);
Leighton, Perseus and Andromeda (1891–94); Rops,
La Tentation de St-Antoine [The Temptation of Saint
Anthony] (1878), L’Incantation [Incantation] (1896);
Lévy-Dhurmer, Medusa (1897); Khnopff, The
Caress (1896); Cabanal, Cleopatra Testing Poisons
on Condemned Prisoners (1897); Draper, Ulysses
and the Sirens (1909); Stuck, Inferno (1908);
Wardle, A Bacchante (1909); and Schwabe, Medusa
(1895), Spleen and Ideal (c. 1907-8), The Faun (1923)
Aubrey Beardsley — Best Works of Aubrey Beardsley, 7–19, 21–22 [view also
Rossetti’s La Pia de’ Tolomei (1868–80) on my website in conjunction with
Beardsley’s Kiss of Judas, p. 22], 42, 47–48, 50–53, 56–57, 62–74, 76–77,
79, 80–91, 94–114, 117, 119–129, 133–40, 144–48, 151, 154–55
Beardsley — illustrations for Lysistrata (1897)
Beardsley Caricatures, other Beardsley Pictures, and Punch
cartoons (via the various links noted below, or via a
Powerpoint slide show [if you have Powerpoint
software] by clicking
BeardsleyPunch2Portrait.ENL6256.S11, then the slide
show tab, then “From Beginning.” The order should be
the same as below, and if there’s a glitch, click previous
on the slide.): “Beardsley Admiring Himself,” “One &
Only Aubrey,” Caricature of Beerbohm by Beardsley,
“Aubrey Bear-dsley” by Max Beerbohm, Vignette
intended for the Bon-Mots series (1893–94) [Reputed
Caricature of Max Beerbohm], Beardsley with Paper by Max Beerbohm,
another version of Beardsley with Paper by Max Beerbohm
Other Beardsley Pictures: Hollyer Photograph of Beardsley (1893), Self-Portrait
(1892), Skeleton Woman (1894), How King Arthur Saw the Questing Beast
(1893), Pierrot Tickling Demimondaine (1894), Grotesque in Bon-Mots of
Foote and Hook (1894)
Punch cartoons: “An Appropriate Illustration, by Danby Weirdsley” (Vol. 106),
“Ars Presumptera” (Vol. 107, p. 205), Frontispiece of Juvenal (1895),
“Beardsley Pulling Carriage” (Vol. 108), “Britannia à la Beardsley” (Vol.
108), “Published at the Bodily Head” (Vol. 108), “Le Yellow Book”
(Vol.108)
Week 14
Michael Field: The Tragic Art of Love [Packet #6: c. 90 pages]
Virginia Blain, “Michael Field [Katherine Bradley (1846–1914) and Edith Cooper
(1862–1913)]”
Michael Field [Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper] —
Poetry: “Long Ago: XIV,” “A Dance of Death,” “A Dying
Viper,” “The Tragic Mary Queen of Scots,” “The Woods
Are Still,” “Unbosoming,” “As two fair vessels side by
side,” “Embalmment,” “The Mummy Invokes his Soul,”
“Trinity,” “Your Rose is Dead,” “Ebbtide at Sundown,”
“Maids, not to you my mind doth change,”
“L’Indifférent,” “La Gioconda,” “Thanatos, thy praise I
sing,” “A Girl,” “It was deep April, and the morn” [a.k.a.
“Prologue”], “Venus and Mars” (see website image of
Botticelli’s Venus and Mars),” “The Magdalen,” “A PenDrawing of Leda”
Michael Field — Verse Drama: Julia Domna (1903), 1–50
—— DRAFT OF TERM PAPER DUE (Optional)——
Week 15
Bending Short-Fictional Modalities: Harland, Stenbock, and Rolfe
[4 pictures; Packet #6: c. 95 pages]
Introduction: “Henry Harland (1861–1905)”
Henry Harland — “The Invisible Prince,” The Yellow Book 10 (July
1896): [59]–87; “Merely Players,” The Yellow Book 13 (April
1897): [19]–50
High Victorian Art (via the various links noted below, or via a
Powerpoint slide show [if you have Powerpoint software] by clicking
VictorianHomosexualPortrait.ENL6256.S11, then the slide show tab, then
“From Beginning.” The order should be the same as below, and if there’s a
glitch, click previous on the slide.): Renoir, Young Boy with a Cat (1868-69);
Simeon Solomon, Bacchus (1868), The Sleepers, and the One that Watcheth
(1870), Night (1896); Bouguereau, Cupidon (1875); Leighton, Athlete
Struggling with a Python (1874-77); Schwabe, Les noces du poete avec la
muse ou l’ideal (1902)
Introduction: “Eric Stenbock (1860–1895)”
Count Eric Stenbock — “A Modern St. Venantius,” “The Story of a
Scapular,” pp. 95–110
Introduction: “Baron Corvo [Frederick Rolfe] (1860–1913)”
Baron Corvo [Frederick Rolfe] —“Stories Toto Told Me,” The Yellow
Book 9 (April 1896): [86]–101
Week 16
William Butler Yeats: From Victorian to Modern [Packet #6: 2 pages;
Selected Poems, c. 70 pages]
Introduction: William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
M. L. Rosenthal, “Introduction: The Poetry of Yeats,” William Butler Yeats:
Selected Poems and Four Plays, Fourth edition, ed. M. L. Rosenthal (New
York: Scribner, 1996), xix–xliv
W. B. Yeats — “Down by the Salley Gardens,” “The Man Who
Dreamed of Fairyland,” “He Wishes For the Cloths of
Heaven,” “The Folly of Being Comforted,” “Adam’s
Curse,” “No Second Troy,” “Brown Penny,”“September
1913,” “To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To
Nothing,” “The Cold Heaven,” “The Wild Swans at
Coole,” “Upon a Dying Lady” [about Mabel Beardsley],
“The Saint and the Hunchback,” “Easter, 1916,” “The
Second Coming,” “Sailing to Byzantium,” “Nineteen
Hundred and Nineteen,” “Leda and the Swan,” “Among
School Children,” “The Choice,” “Byzantium,” “Crazy
Jane Talks With the Bishop” (pp. 148–49), “The Gyres,” “Lapis Lazuli,”
“Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad,” “Long-Legged Fly,” “The Circus
Animals’ Desertion”
——TERM PAPER DUE, MONDAY OF FINALS WEEK——