Decadent Plays: 1890 to 1925: Salome; The Race of Leaves; The Orgy: A Drama Poem; Madame La Mort; Lilith; Ennoa: A Triptych; The Black Maskers; La Gioconda; Ardiane and the Barbe Bleue or, The Useless Deliverance; Kerria Japonica; The Dove

(Paperback)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Witty satire, political drama, transgressive social commentary, mystical meditation; for years, these topics were banned from the stage. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries decadent writers turned to decadence as a means of responding to urban modernity, and dramatists were no exception. Decadence offered these writers a framework for exploring nonconformist identities and beliefs that challenged narrow ideas about taste, decency, and progress, and recurring motifs included queer sexualities and genders, elitism, social class, degeneracy and decay. International in scope and eclectic in content, this edited anthology is an authoritative and accessible introduction to this fast-expanding field of decadent literature . The first publication of its kind to deal specifically with decadent dramatic works in the pre-modernist and modernist periods, Decadent Plays breaks new ground by exploring how the concept of decadence cuts across genre, styles, and culture, and by including little-known works that are currently out-of-print. Featuring work Oscar Wilde, Michael Field, Lesya Ukrainka, Rachilde, Remy de Gourmont, Jean Lorrain, Leonid Andreyev, Gabriele DAnnunzio, Maurice Maeterlinck, Izumi Kyoka, and Djuna Barnes, this anthology includes a selection of mainstream and marginal plays, some of which have been translated into English for the first time. An essential and influential introduction to the fast-expanding field of decadent literature, this edited anthology is suitable for undergraduate and graduate students, and specialists and non-specialists alike.

Author Bio

Adam Alston is Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Surrey, UK. He is the author of Beyond Immersive Theatre: Aesthetics, Politics and Productive Participation (2016), and co-editor of Theatre in the Dark: Shadow, Gloom and Blackout in Contemporary Theatre (Bloomsbury, 2017). Jane Desmarais is Director of the Decadence Research Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Editor-in-chief of Volupt. Her most recent publications include Monsters under Glass: A Cultural History of Hothouse Flowers, 1850 to the Present (2018), and three edited works: Decadence and the Senses (with Alice Cond, 2017); Arthur Symons: Selected Early Poems (with Chris Baldick, 2017); and Decadence and Literature (with David Weir, 2019).