Some Problems in Definition

31 SOME PROBLEMS IN DEFINITION By H. E. Gerber 1. Perhaps we should first dismiss one historical use of the terms aestheticism and decadence: that use of both terms, but especially of the latter, asa derogatory label for almost any kind of writing the critic or special-interest group did not like. Either term so used has little meaning for literature, though it may have much meaning for social psychology, for semantics, and lexicography. Our task is, I think, to decide whether there is any specific valid use to which these two terms can be put in the vocabulary of the literary historian or the critic. Do these terms identify a specific kind of literature? Do they describe a specific literary movement or literary style or literary content? Having dismissed as useless the merely name-calling adaptation of these terms, their use to condemn the immorality or amorality or merely the unpopular opinions of very different writers as persons and of their literary works, we are still faced with many fundamental problems of definition. As In the case of romanticism, classicism, and, currently, terms like "modern" and "contemporary," the two labels here being considered have been used as specifically historical terms, as terms identified with a specific period of years in literary history, =md, also, more generally, as cultural labels or aesthetic labels applicable at various time In literary and cultural history. Thus, we can speak of the aestheticism of the l870s and 1880s and of the decadence of the 1880s and l890s But we can also speak of decadence in the Greek anthology or in the Gothic novel or, presumably, in some works of some romantic poets. Similarly, we can probably also speak of the aestheticism of certain 17th and 18th century writers, perhaps of the aestheticism of, say, Lyly's EUPHUES, or of Don Luis de Gongora y Argote's gongorism, or of G. M. Marino's marinism in L1ADONE, or of Pierre Carlet de Chamberlain de Marivaux's "marivaudage" in LA VIE DE MARIANNE, and so on. The more general use of the term, however, would seem to take us quite far afield, even if profitably. We might therefore limit our attempts to understand these terms to the specific years In English literary history when they were most prominently used and, in any event, the period with which we are most immediately concerned. Can we, then, meaningfully apply these two terms to specific works, groups of works, and authors in England between about I87O and about I9OO? If so, what particular characteristics of a literary work are Identified by these terms? 2. These questions lead us to more specific problems. Do these terms apply solely or best to subject matter, or to stylistic traits other than those immediately related to content, or to both equally? For example, does aestheticism usually include descriptions of precious stones, exotic perfumes, luxurious draperies—subject matter, in other words, conventionally associated with beauty, as, presumably, clay, granit, coal, sulphur, the odor of garlic, burlap, and horsehair blankets are not? Does aestheticism, in its stylistic traits, ordinarily include catalogues, sonorous language, melifluous rhythms, even at the cost of sense? Similarly, does decadence imply the presence in content of the grotesque, 32 the putrescent, the immoral, and, in style, the disassociation of ideas, the wrenching of figures of speech toward the end of shocking or startling? 3. These considerations lead to still other problems. Do what we call aestheticism and what we call decadence overlap in style or content? If so, ¡n what ways do they overlap or are they related? Is decadence an immoral aestheticism in content or an aestheticism gone berserk in style? Is decadence an extreme form of aestheticism? Is aestheticism closer in kind to what now seems to be understood by the term classicism, and, by contrast, is decadence then closer to what now seems to be understood by romanticism? 4. How do these terms apply to specific works by specific authors who produced much of their work between about I87O and about I9OO? In what way are writers like Symonds, Wilde, the early George Moore, Robert Louis Stevenson, Hubert Crackanthorpe, John Davidson, Lionel Johnson, Francis Thompson, Ernest Dowson, George...