Decadence and Catholicism

by Ellis Hanson

Romantic writers had found in Christianity a poetic cult of the imagination, an assertion of the spiritual quality of beauty in an age of vulgar materialism. The decadents, a diverse movement of writers, were the climax and exhaustion of this romantic tradition. In their art, they enacted the romance of faith as a protest against the dreariness of modern life. Ellis Hanson teases out two strands--eroticism and aestheticism--that rendered the decadent interest in Catholicism extraordinary. More than any other literary movement, the decadents explored the powerful historical relationship between homoeroticism and Roman Catholicism. Why, throughout history, have so many homosexuals been attracted to Catholic institutions that vociferously condemn homosexuality? This perplexing question is pursued in this elegant and innovative book.

Late-nineteenth-century aesthetes found in the Church a peculiar language that gave them a means of artistic and sexual expression. The brilliant cast of characters that parades through this book includes Oscar Wilde, Charles Baudelaire, J.-K. Huysmans, Walter Pater, and Paul Verlaine. Art for these writers was a mystical and erotic experience. In decadent Catholicism we can glimpse the beginnings of a postmodern valorization of perversity and performativity. Catholicism offered both the hysterical symptom and the last hope for paganism amid the dullness of Victorian puritanism and bourgeois materialism.

Genres: Nonfiction, Catholic, Literary Criticism, Religion, Theology, Art

416 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1998

Reviews

[Alasdair Ekpenyong · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I have read all year. The author outlines the differences between what he calls "decadent" or fin-de-siècle Catholicism (Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater, etc.) and modernist Catholicism, which is epitomized in his eyes by TS Eliot. He shows the relationship between the Symbolist ideas of beauty and truth and the aesthetic sensibilities found in some pockets of Catholicism. He seeks, in short, to answer the question, why have so many gay men in Western modernity become Catholics?

On top of his main argument, which explains the Catholicism of the great decadent writers one by one, he has a couple of secondary arguments. He discusses the snobbery and disdain that Eliot and other high modernists had for the playful, witty spirituality of Wilde, Pater and others. The modernists had a hard time taking fin-de-siècle writers seriously, but Hanson makes a good case for the sincerity and legitimacy of these queer men's Catholicisms. He actually suggests that by rejecting decadent playfulness in favor of cold sobriety, the modernists estranged themselves from some of the inventive cultural power of Catholic culture. Hanson concludes by saying that postmodern gay Catholic artists--he cites Derek Jarman and Pier Paolo Pasolini in particular--are successfully renewing the spiritual energies that were found in the prolific writings of the 19th century decadents. The role of Wagner's music (e.g. Parsifal) is also a recurrent motif in Hanson's argument.

Overall, this book is great for anyone interested in any of the following issues:
-gay male history
-fin-de-siècle arts and literature
-high modernism
-anti-Catholicism in Victorian culture
-Cardinal Newman and high church Anglicanism
-Oscar Wilde
-Pier Paolo Pasolini
-queer religiosities
-Salomé, Medea, and other literary antiheroines
-postmodernism
-Foucauldian literary criticism

[reveurdart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceptionally well conveyed. I would even go so far as to say that it's one of the best books on decadence I've ever read. The topic of religion and spirituality have long fascinated me about the decadent movement, and this book answered my many questions.

I also highly recommend, Mystical Symbolism: The Salon de la Rose+Croix in Paris, 1892–1897.

[Marlo · Rating 5 out of 5]

hanson is a fantastic writer, and makes this easily a pleasure read despite the heaviness of its content

[Samantha]

Recommended by Ruby Granger