• Decadent Love: Deviant Courtship in two Decadent Short Stories

Abstract:

In this paper I will explore the topic of courtship, understood in a broad sense, in two short stories written within the Decadent movement: Mabel Wotton’s "The Fifth Edition" and Robert W. Chambers’ "The Street of our Lady of the Fields".

Both stories present courtships that depart from the traditional definition of the term. While in "The Fifth Edition" Franklyn Leyden’s pursuit of Miss Suttaby resembles at times a courtship, his objective is to earn not her affection, but her work and ideas. Because he does not really care for her, there is a mismatch between his perception of her and what the narrative discloses about her. In "The Street of our Lady of the Fields", Hastings courts Valentine sincerely. However, it is strongly suggested that she is a prostitute, and she wishes to keep this information from Hastings, who seems unaware of it.

As the brief descriptions begin to suggest, both stories deal with the problematization of courtship through its essential components of self-presentation and its perception by others. I will analyze how this problematization is constructed on a textual level, focusing on characterization, the presentation of conflicting character perspectives and the role of the narrator. Furthermore, I will show how the narrative, as a Decadent product, interacts with the reader in a similar kind of deviant courtship.

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• Dissident passions? And why?

• Elements which are important in these relationships:

  • clothes, manners, self-presentation (descriptions) - how one looks
  • feelings and ideas about the other one (and how these are conveyed) - how the others are looking
  • why are these relationships somehow dissident?
  • why does romance never fully work in decadence?

Meeting with Zöe

• courtship: -  broadening the sense of what courthsip means -  extend and stretch the term -  courtship in terms of seeing each other, imposing their own ideas onto others, and the others receiving them: showing oneself and being received. How do those match?

  • a problematized relationship: what is seen is not what is projected, what is being projected is not what is seen
  • how are they being problematized?

• The fifth edition:

  • marginalized character, starting from complete exclusion
  • use the fifth edition to establish the problems
  • giving and receiving of who one is cannot happen. she doesnt give much away either
  • decadence aesthetic: he doesnt have a way of describing her in the world that he lives in
  • look at it on a textual level:
  • fifth edition: weird focalization thing: he is so unable to see her that the narrative itself is not being able to see her. we also cannot see her properly. however he is not the narrator. he overwhelms the narrator. his effect on her is so strong

• The Street of our Lady of the Fields

  • a little more subtle and nuances

  • he also doesn’t see her but it is not the same thing exactly

  • this courtship ritual

  • chambers: very close reading section. really close reading and picking apart.

  • In general:

    • mediating characters and filtering characters.
    • look at it on a textual level:
      • fifth edition: weird focalization thing: he is so unable to see her that the narrative itself is not being able to see her. we also cannot see her properly. however he is not the narrator. he overwhelms the narrator. his effect on her is so strong
      • the best version of this essay accounts on the narrative and the reader into the courship ritual as well. what role does it/do they play?
      • what is the text seeing and offering? (courtship between reader and text: what is the text offering the reader)
    • the same relationship is happening between the character and the text?
    • focus on courtship and the fifth edition
    • Our Lady is so based in the decadent community
    • the fifth edition is not decadet figures directly
    • in the transition take account of the difference. acknowledge these are characters that belong to a very different environment. Hastings: he is a liminal character, he is not fully one of them either
    • situation of Chamber’s text: tick the decadent box
    • fifth edition: fin de siecle character (artistic and intelectual freedom).
      • belongs to decadence but he is not a decadent figure. he benefits from the decadent movement. enjoying the intelectual freedom without being a Dorian Gray character
      • nice segue into the other male character
      • demonstrated that being able to situate text
      • key themes that run through
      • if argument is that it is a neglected text, then give it its importance with a detailed, close reading analysis

  • come back to her with outline and send it to her

  • do it in june

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