Dec 2014
To the Victorian poets of Decadence:
I love you, you who conquered lands unknown,
spread diseases, plagues full-blown;
you who revelled
in the unbearable lushness of being
sensuous and decadent, kings
of insidious words, slipping sweetly,
sliding slickly
into the narrow channels of the outraged public brain.
Ah how I love you, you who exhilarated
in deep despair; woe to the nightingale immortalised!
Who yet found meaning in dark emptiness,
rallying 'round with the cry of 'Art for art's sake!'
And so you, bridled with emotion, eat your cake,
fuming with bright, bitter melancholy,
never gaining the intimacy
and restfulness you so craved.
I think I love you because I understand you,
you who search relentlessly through
the victorious squalor of life that will not cede
control to your grasping hands
but jostles greedily to conquer virtuous lands.
Run away Prudence, Chastity and Grace!
Fall to your knees, hang your head, hide your face,
let shame overtake you, for Faith is a cuss word, you've decided.
And so, you arrogant men who surrender
to the hedonist's depraved desires, you pleasure seeker,
dearest sybarite, no mere voluptuary,
You whose gilt-edged poetry tongues my heart,
whose heady sensitivity makes me start,
and long for the things of the world I should not cannot want,
I love you unto madness, to distraction, to a slant-
ing of morals, to giving in and giving up.
I fall, a long way down.
I love you, you who conquered lands unknown,
spread diseases, plagues full-blown;
you who revelled
in the unbearable lushness of being
sensuous and decadent, kings
of insidious words, slipping sweetly,
sliding slickly
into the narrow channels of the outraged public brain.
Ah how I love you, you who exhilarated
in deep despair; woe to the nightingale immortalised!
Who yet found meaning in dark emptiness,
rallying 'round with the cry of 'Art for art's sake!'
And so you, bridled with emotion, eat your cake,
fuming with bright, bitter melancholy,
never gaining the intimacy
and restfulness you so craved.
I think I love you because I understand you,
you who search relentlessly through
the victorious squalor of life that will not cede
control to your grasping hands
but jostles greedily to conquer virtuous lands.
Run away Prudence, Chastity and Grace!
Fall to your knees, hang your head, hide your face,
let shame overtake you, for Faith is a cuss word, you've decided.
And so, you arrogant men who surrender
to the hedonist's depraved desires, you pleasure seeker,
dearest sybarite, no mere voluptuary,
You whose gilt-edged poetry tongues my heart,
whose heady sensitivity makes me start,
and long for the things of the world I should not cannot want,
I love you unto madness, to distraction, to a slant-
ing of morals, to giving in and giving up.
I fall, a long way down.
This is something I wrote a long time ago when I was studying the Romantic movement and came across the Aesthetic / Decadent movement + their poetry, and realised that man, were they confused and so restless. All the same, there's something very tempting about their world views.
"Many Victorians passionately believed that literature and art fulfilled important ethical roles. Literature provided models of right behaviour: it allowed people to identify with situations in which good actions were rewarded, or it provoked tender emotions. At best, the sympathies stirred by art and literature would spur people to action in the real world. The supporters of aestheticism, however, disagreed, arguing that art had nothing to do with morality. Instead, art was primarily about the elevation of taste and the pure pursuit of beauty. More controversially, the aesthetes also saw these qualities as guiding principles for life
...
The word (decadence) literally means a process of ‘falling away’ or decline. In relation to art and literature, it signalled a set of interlinked qualities. These included the notion of intense refinement; the valuing of artificiality over nature; a position of ennui or boredom rather than of moral earnestness or the valuing of hard work; an interest in perversity and paradox, and in transgressive modes of sexuality.
- See more at: http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/aestheticism-and-decadence#sthash.6Nd31ZkA.dpuf"
"Out of my league, I have birds in my sleeves
And I wanna rush in with the fools"
—"Squalor Victoria", The National
"Many Victorians passionately believed that literature and art fulfilled important ethical roles. Literature provided models of right behaviour: it allowed people to identify with situations in which good actions were rewarded, or it provoked tender emotions. At best, the sympathies stirred by art and literature would spur people to action in the real world. The supporters of aestheticism, however, disagreed, arguing that art had nothing to do with morality. Instead, art was primarily about the elevation of taste and the pure pursuit of beauty. More controversially, the aesthetes also saw these qualities as guiding principles for life
...
The word (decadence) literally means a process of ‘falling away’ or decline. In relation to art and literature, it signalled a set of interlinked qualities. These included the notion of intense refinement; the valuing of artificiality over nature; a position of ennui or boredom rather than of moral earnestness or the valuing of hard work; an interest in perversity and paradox, and in transgressive modes of sexuality.
- See more at: http://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/aestheticism-and-decadence#sthash.6Nd31ZkA.dpuf"
"Out of my league, I have birds in my sleeves
And I wanna rush in with the fools"
—"Squalor Victoria", The National
