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The Decadent Appreciation Thread
Aspasia Perivale
Posts: 29
8/3/2015
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I searched and couldn't find a similar thread so I figured I'd start one for all us fin-de-siécle nerds. For the uninitiated, the Decadent movement (such as it was, occasionally conflated/overlapped with the Aesthete and Symbolist movements) was an artistic/lifestyle movement loosely spanning the mid-late to late 19th century with Romanticism at one end and proto-Modernism at the other. In its most basic form the idea was that civilization was on the decline and instead of using beauty and pleasure for wholesome, edifying, Victorian sorts of ends beauty and pleasure were really the only things humanity had going on for it in the face of a crumbling world similar to the last days of Rome and really the only thing you could do was appreciate it, preferably in as shocking and counter-cultural a manner as possible. Obviously this is an incredibly simplified summary, but the point is that Fallen London fits right into the heyday of Decadence, owes a lot of debts to the movement itself, and is a wonderful place to be hedonistic and degenerate in, so let's drink some absinthe, write some OTT erotic poetry and celebrate all things Decadent.
The Decadent Handbook, featuring art, poetry, and biographies of a lot of well-known Decadent types.
"Decadent movement" on Wikipedia, a good introduction with a list of major players.
And just a link to À rebours on Google Books because it's probably my favorite Decadent book next to Dorian Gray and is a pretty good introduction to what Decadence is all about. Be warned: if you don't like books that are basically just long lists of descriptions this is probably not the book for you.
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The Adventures of Aspasia Perivale and Mister Tiddles.
"While she dresses above her station, Miss Perivale can hardly be mistaken for a women of class. She has no time for class, being merely hungry."
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