1(A) SEMINAR: FIN-DE-SIECLE—FROM ROMANTICISM TO MODERNISM [ROMANTICISM, ART FOR ART’S SAKE, DECADENCE, SYMBOLISM, ART NOUVEAU AND MODERNISM]

                                                                                               

Term II, Spring 2002

 

READING ASSIGNMENTS [TEXTS INDICATED]

 

DAY/DATE                    ASSIGNMENT

 

WEEK 1:                      ROMANTICISM

 

1.1 Tuesday, Feb. 5:            Introduction, Discussion of Projects, Evaluations, Outline of Course

 

1.2 Friday, Feb. 8:            Reading Assignment: READING NOTES REQUIRED FOR 1.2 OR 2.1

 

            [TEXT]              Mario Praz, The Romantic Agony

Foreword, v-xv; Preface, xv-xxiv; Second Edition Preface, xxiv; Introduction, 1-22;

Chapter I, “The Beauty of the Medusa,” 23-52;

Chapter II, “The Metamorphoses of Satan,” 53-94;

Chapter III, “The Shadow of the Divine Marquis,” 95-197.

 

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WEEK 2:                       ROMANTICISM CONT.

 

2.1 Tuesday, Feb. 12

 

            [TEXT]              Mario Praz, The Romantic Agony

                                    Chapter IV, “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” 199-300;

                                    Chapter V, “Byzantium,” 303-434;

                                    Appendix, “Swinburne and ‘Le Vice Anglais,” 437-457.

 

2.2 Friday, Feb 15         THE ROMANTIC “HERO”

 

Additional Reading            Sigmund Freud, (1922) “On the Universal Tendency to Debasement in the Sphere of Love,” vol. 11, The Complete Works, 177-190.

                                    [NC LIBRARY RESERVE: BF 173 F6253 VOL.11]

 

                                    E.A.Poe, (1845) “The Fall of the House of Usher”

                                   

Suggested Reading:            Georges Bataille, (1957) Eroticism: Death and Sensuality, San Fransico:  City Lights Books, 1957/1986.

                                    Chapter II, “De Sade’s Sovereign Man,” 164-176;

                                    Chapter III, “De Sade and the Normal Man,” 177-196.

 

Susan Sontag, (1963) “The Pornographic Imagination,” 205-233, A Susan Sontag Reader, New York: Farrar/Straus/Giroux, 1963/1982

 

                                    Roland Barthes, Sade, Fourier, Loyola, (Trans. Richard Miller) New York: Hill and Wang, 1976.

                                    “Sade I,” 15-37;

                                    “Sade II,” 123-171;

                                    “Lives: Sade,” 173-182.

 

2.2 Additonal Reading Related to the Fatal Woman:

Elaine Showalter, (1990) Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siecle, New York: Penguin Books, 1990. Particuarly:

                                    1, “Borderlines,” 1-18;

                                    2, “Odd Women,” 18-37;

                                    8, “ Decadence, Homosexuality, and Feminism,” 169-187 (esp. 169-178).

                                    [NC LIBRARY RESERVE: PR 468 F46 S56 1990]

 

Suggested Reading:            Angela Carter, The Sadeian Woman: and the Ideology of Pornography, New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. “ late twentieth century interpretation of some of the problems she raises about the culturally determined nature of women and of the relations between men and women that result from it…”

                                    [NC LIBRARY: PQ 2063. S3 C34]

 

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WEEK 3:                       FATAL WOMEN AND HOMOSEXUAL MEN

 

3.1 Tuesday, Feb. 19            Gustave Flaubert, (1877) “Herodias”

 

Suggested:                    Victor Brombert, The Novels of Flaubert: A Study in Themes and Techniques, Princeton, N.J. 1966.

                                    Chapter 8, “Herodias,” 246-257.

 

                                    Gilbert and Gubar, No Man’s Land,

                                    Chapter 1, “Heart of Darkness: The Agon of the Femme Fatale,” 3-46.

[Lengthy dscussion of Rider Haggard’s She, the relationship between feminine and the modern etc.]

                                    [NC LIBRARY RESERVE: PR 116. G5 1988]

 

3.2 Friday, Feb. 22            DECADENCE

 

                                    Calinesce, Matei, Five Faces of Modernity: Modernism, Avant-Garde,

Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism, Durham: Duke UP, 1987.

(a)     The Idea of Decadence: Versions of Decadence, 151-157;

(b)     From “Decadence” to “Style of Decadence,” 157-171;

(c)     Nietsche of “Decadence” and “Modernity,” 178-194;

(d)     The Concept of Decadence in Marxist Criticism, 195-211;

(e)     II Decadentisimo, 211-221.

[NC LIBRARY RESERVE: EH 301. M54 C34 1987]

 

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WEEK 4                        AESTHETICISM AND ART FOR ART’S SAKE

 

4.1 Tuesday, Feb. 24 ONE READING OUTLINE ON DIJKSTRA—EITHER 4.1 OR 4.2

           

            [TEXT]              Bram Dijkstra, Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-de

Siecle Culture, New York and Oxford: Oxford UP, 1986.

                                    Chapter I, Raptures of Submission: The Shopkeeper’s Soul Keeper and

the Cult of the Household Nun, 3-24.                                   

                                    Chapter II, The Cult of Invalidism: Ophelia and Folly; Dead Ladies and

the Fetish of Sleep, 25-63.

                                    Chapter III, The Collapsing Woman: Solitary Vice and Restful

Detumesence, 64-82.

                                     Chapter IV, The Weightless Woman; The Nymph with the Broken Back;

and the Mythology of Therapeutic Rape, 83-118.

                                    Chapter V, Women of Moonlight and Wax: The Mirror of Venus and the

Lesbian Glass, 119-159.

                                    Chapter VI, Evolution of the Brain: Extinguished Eyes and the Call of the

Child, Homosexuality and the Dream of Male Transcendence,

160-209.

                                    [NC LIBRARY: NX 652 W6 D55 1986]

 

4.2    Friday, Mar. 1

 

   

[TEXT]              Bram Dijkstra, Idols of Perversity.

                        Chapter VII, Clinging Vines and the Dangers of Degeneration, 210-234.

 

                        Chapter VIII, Poison Flowers: Maenads of the Decadence and the Torrid

Wail of Sirens, 235-271.

                                    Chapter IX, Gyanders and Genetics: Connoissuers of Beastiality and

Serpentine Delights; Leda, Circe, and the Cold Caresses of the

Sphinx, 272-332.

                                    Chapter X, Metamorphoses of the Vampire: Dracula and His Daughters,

333-351.

                                    Chapter XI, Gold and the Virgin Whores of Babylon: Judith and Salome:

The Priestesses of Man’s Severed Head, 352-402.

 

 

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WEEK 5

 

5.1 Tuesday Mar. 5  NO READING RESPONSES FOR HUYSMANS—CLASS

DISCUSSION ONLY           

 

            [TEXT]              Joris K. Huysmans, (1884) Against Nature

                                    Introduction, 5-14; Prologue, 17-24;

                                    Chapters 1-7, 25-95

                                    Chapters 8-16, 96-220.

                                    [READ ENTIRE BOOK]

 

5.2 Friday, Mar. 8            Additional Readings:

 

                                    Joseph Halpern, “Decadent Narrative: A Rebours,” 91-102, Stanford

French Review 11.1 (Spring 1978) [11 pages]

[NC LIBRARY PERIODICAL: PQ 1 S7 (1978)]

 

Charles Bernheimer, “Huysmans: Writing Against (Female) Nature,” 374-386 in The Female Body in Western Culture: Contemporary

Perspectives, Ed. Susan Rubin Sulieman, Harvard UP, Cambridge,

1986. [12 pages]

[NC LIBRARY RESERVE: USF LIBRARY: NX 652 W6 F46 1986]

 

James Laver, The First Decadent: Being the Strange Life of J.K.

Huysman, New York: Citadel Press, 1955.

                                    Chapter 5, “A Rebours,” 74-91 [17 pages]

                                    [NC LIBRARY: PQ 2309 H4 Z637 1955]

 

                                    John R. Reed, Decadent Style

                                    Chapter 2, “Decadent Fiction” 19-71

                                    [NC LIBRARY: NX 454 R44 1985]

 

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WEEK 6

 

6.1 Tuesday, Mar. 12 NO READING RESPONSES FOR WILDE

 

            [TEXT]              Oscar Wilde, (1891) The Picture of Dorian Grey,

                                    Introduction, 7-15;

                                    Preface, 1-11; Chapters 1-10, 23-157

                                    Chapters 11-20, 158-264.

                                    [READ ENTIRE BOOK]

 

6.2 Friday, Mar. 15            SYMBOLISM

 

            [TEXT]              Lucie-Smith, Edward, Symbolist Art, London: Thames and Hudson,

1972.

                                    Chapters 1-7

1.       Symbolic Art

2.       Romanticism and Symbolism

3.       Symbolist Currents in England

4.       Symbolist Currents in France

5.       Gustave Moreau

6.       Redon and Bresdin

7.       Puvis de Chavannes and Carriere

[NC LIBRARY: N6465 S9 L8 1972B]

 

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WEEK 7                        SYMBOLISM CONT.

 

7.1 Tuesday, Mar. 26

 

            [TEXT]              Lucie-Smith, Edward, Symbolist Art.

                                    Chapters 8-15

8.       Gaugin, Pont-Aven and the Nabis, 108-

9.       The Rose + Croix

10.   The English 1980s

11.   The Symbolist International

12.   Rops and Ensor

13.   Edvard Munch, 183-193

14.   Klimt and the Vienna Sucession, 193-

15.   The Young Picasso, 201-208

 

7.2 Friday, Mar. 22 NO CLASS: CRIS AT CONFERENCE ON THE FANTASTIC IN THE

ARTS

 

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BREAK WEEK: MAR. 25-29, 2002

 

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WEEK 1: MODULE 2            ART NOUVEAU AND ‘PSYCHOLOGIE NOUVELLE’

 

1.1 Tuesday, Apr. 2            READING RESPONSES REQUIRED FOR SILVERMAN

 

            [TEXT]              Deborah L. Silverman, Art-Nouveau in Fin-de Siecle France: Politics,

Psychology and Style, Berkley: University of California Press,

1989/1992.

                                    Introduction: The Transformation of Art Nouveau, 1889-1900, 1-16;

                                    Chapter I: The Brothers de Goncourt between History and the Psyche,

17-42;

                                    Chapter II: Aristocratic Ralliement and Social Solidarite, 42-51;

                                    Chapter III: The Abdication of Technology and the Elevation of the

Crafts, 52-61;

                                    Chapter IV: Amazone, Femme Nouvelle, and the Threat to the Bourgeois

Family, 63-74;

                                    Chapter V: Psychologie Nouvelle, 75-108

                                    [NC LIBRARY: N6847.5 A78 S55 1989]

 

1.2 Friday, Apr. 5            Deborah L. Silverman, Art Nouveau in Fin-de-Siecle France: Politics,

Psychology and Style.

                                    Chapters 10-15, 172-314.

 

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WEEK 2                        TEXTS OF SYMBOLISM AND DECADENCE

 

2.1 Tuesday, Apr. 9       Stephane Mallarme, (1869) “Herodiade;”

                                  

 

2.2 Friday, Apr. 12:       Oscar Wilde, (1893)  Salome

 

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 3.1 Tuesday, April 16: FETISHISM

 

                                    Bernheimer, Charles, “Fetishism and Decadence: Salome’s Severed

Heads,” 62-83 in Emily Apter and William Pietz (eds). Fetishism

as Cultural Discourse Ithaca and New York: Cornell UP, 1993.

 

                                    Freud, Sigmund, “Fetishism,”  The Complete Works, v. 21, 152-157.

 

                                    Apter, Emily.  Feminizing the Fetish: Psychoanalysis and Narrative

Obsession in Turn-of-the Century France. Ithaca and London:

Cornell UP, 1991.

                                    Chapter 1. “Fetishism in Theory: Marx, Freud and Baudrillard,” 1-14.

                                    Chapter 4, “Unmasking the Masquerade: Fetishism and Femininity form

the Goncourt Brothers to Joan Riviere,” 65-98.

                                   

 

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 READINGS FOR PAPERS:

 

                                    Novalis, Hymns to the Night

 

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 3.2
                     FRI, APR. 19:                       LECTURE 1: Katie Solli on NOVALIS


WEEK 4, MOD 2: TUES, APR 23:            LECTURE 2: Katherine Borse on MALLARME 

 
   
                     FRI, APR. 26:                       CLASS DISCUSSION: THE BODY, THE GAZE


WEEK 5, MOD 2: TUES, APR. 30:            LECTURE 3: Megan Mook on NIETZSCHE


                        FRI, MAY 3:             LECTURE 4: Amy Simmons on SCHIELE

 
WEEK 6, MOD 2:
TUES, MAY 7:            LECTURE 5:  Mary Brink on MUCHA'S POSTERS


                        FRI, MAY 10:                        LECTURE 6: Liz Renes on KLIMT    


WEEK 7, MOD 2: TUES, MAY 14:            LECTURE 7:  Kathryn Sibiski on BEARDSLEY 

                        FRI, MAY 17:                        COURSE EVALUATIONS