Richard Gilman (1923–2006)

Half literary history of the "Decadent" movement of the nineteenth century, half investigation of what if anything "decadence" might mean in the real world - nothing coherent, Gilman concludes -, half complaint about the use of the word as a vague epithet suggesting rather than providing meaning.

(Yes, that's too many halves. I blame the degeneracy of modern math tuition.)

"Words take on life...", Gilman begins, as he explores, without attempting to lock in a definition, "Decadence" and its biography. Begins and ends with the observation that the word recommends itself "...to the shallow, the thoughtless and imitative, the academically frozen: monkey-minds." {180}.

Cites Baudelaire's anathema, that it is a word which shelters our "lack of curiosity regarding the Law". {29, 179} Perhaps its use is a complacency, a screen of indifference. "The Law is what is, show more what truly exists and happens, what cannot be reduced to our opinions, our 'slants'."

It's use is revelatory of "some of the ways we cheat ourselves of truth through language." {180} By stuffing ourselves with emptiness. show less

This was a very readable and applicable analysis of major playwrights.