The Decadence Attraction
An UrbanWeird Chronicles essay
I have found myself using “decadent” and its variations quite a bit to characterize my writing even though I have only ever dappled in how it defines itself and others define it. As with anything that titillates the mind, thus senses, it eludes definitive description and thrives on contradiction. I found that with such sensual-charged words, particularly those which set forth movements of human thought and creativity, we have to ingest what we can gleam from the contraries and controversies and formulate our own familiarity with it. This is what we writers do; we manipulate language to fit into the squishy bits of our brains to nourish the ephemeral thoughts that we then regurgitate back into words, forever changed and unique. I believe voluntarily fee-falling into the damask-lined abyss of decadence can help us achieve this, well at least for us souls surrounded by mists of varying darkness, but darkness that sheens and glimmers.
Like a massive portion of English, “decadence” is of French origin, for which we have a characteristically English truncation: “decay”. However, our short-but-sweet version does not tell the whole tale of its French parent; hence, the reason we also use the full original French “decadence” (without that vexing accent). Decadence embraces both opulence and degeneration; think gilded, glittering chandeliered ballrooms bound by quieted walls pleasurably asphyxiated in velvet the colour of blood spilled weeks before, yet patrons in various stages of addiction and decrepitude that colour their hides a crematorium grey claw and moan at its doors desperate for one last waltz to send them off into ecstatic oblivion. I digress. But that is precisely the point.
From what I have read thus far on the subject, which is not much and is relying on quick Internet searches (I’ve thus decided to embark on a project of reading the literature of the Fin de Siècle—more on that below—the home era of decadent literature), decadence as a concept was first postulated by the French Enlightenment philosopher Montesquieu in the 18th century to describe the cause of the Roman Empire’s decline as moral decay. About a century later, the literary critic Désiré Nissard used decadence to criticize the flighty and weird upstart Romantic writers and described such literature as not following the standards of literature and having an infatuation with extravagant language. What is wrong with that, you may be asking? I’ve not a clue, and neither did those writers because a few decades later their literary offspring took that non-critique and began their own movement celebrating this once derogatory term.
The peak of the Decadent movement was the infamous final two decades of the 19th century in France, the “Fin de Siècle”, a time of malaise and ennui regarding the direction society was heading due to the trauma and turmoil of the century ending. During such mass misery, there is a desire to, well, embrace desire, and the Decadents wholeheartedly took on the mentality of “society is going to shit, so why not enjoy it and go out with a fabulous bang”. When in Rome, eh?
Writers of the Decadent, such as Charles Baudelaire (The Flowers of Evil: first edition 1857), Joris-Karl Huysmans (Against Nature: 1884), Rachilde (Monsieur Vénus: 1884), and their Irish counterpart Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Grey: 1890), championed the passions brought on by societal decline and detested the dull-as-dishwater status quo of the bourgeois. They probably asked, “why wallow in misery of the real world when there is the unfettered fantasy of the human imagination ready to be harvested?” and “why go by these repressive and outdated societal rules when they obviously no longer work?” It was all about artifice with this lot; the human capacity to enjoy the fantasy of pleasure and sensuality when everything is crumbling and decaying all around them. The Decadents demoted nature in favour of the superiority and artificiality of art. They gave us the phrase “art for art’s sake”; art should not be given any moral meaning. It should be enjoyed simply for its beauty and providing pleasure.
Decadence attracted the outliers of society, particularly gender non-conformists and queer individuals. Unfortunately, there also seemed to be an undercurrent of misogyny. Even Rachilde, a woman, derided her own sex and outwardly presented herself in the masculine (going against the laws at the time and wearing men’s clothing), though I believe she still identified as female. She also preferred the company of gay men and supported their right to be. Thus, like any other group of humans, there was diversity of thought, morals, and worldview.
The Decadent movement embraced the dark weird sibling of the Romantic movement, the Gothic; its macabre fascination with decaying and forgotten locals where the sins of history haunt the present. It was a match made in the dank cobweb-laced oubliette of the soul. Decadence simply zhuzhes it up a little with gold embroidered brocade on the blood-blackened walls hiding those ghastly manacles and an elegant crystal goblet of absinthe waiting on a dilapidated table next to the open-hole latrine.
Unfortunately but naturally, Decadence as a movement lasted only a few years during the second half of the 1880s. It began to splinter between those who were diehard decadent, leaning more toward the libertine side of things, and those wanting a less depraved, more positive and aesthetic-focused outlook, i.e., the Symbolists. The period of a movement’s waning is always confusing so this is the best of what I could gather. Decadence as a literary movement fabulously decayed around 1889/90. However, it’s influence remains into the present and with me.
I am constantly asking myself why I am so attracted to the decadent. I do not necessarily believe we should all party like it’s 1899 or sequester ourselves in a mansion in the suburbs to be surrounded by beautiful and ornate objects to escape the drone-like bores of “decent” society like Des Esseintes does in Huysmans’ Against Nature. Well, … OK … maybe I wouldn’t mind doing the latter; it sounds quite nice, except the too horrific for even me suburb part. What attracts me is the imagery and language of decadent writing—unapologetically over the top. It is glamorous decay and baroque language; it is the fantasy and artificiality of ornate beauty in the written word.
Decadent writing does not play well with minimalism. Maximalism is de rigueur. As I am a gay male of a certain age, the legacy and take away for me of the Decadent literary movement is the validation of High Camp. We all know that those Decadent writers would jump at the chance to be guest judges on RuPaul’s Drag Race, some even contestants. It would not be difficult to imagine Oscar Wilde reading a queen to filth over her piss-poor performance in an acting maxi challenge. I have the Decadents to thank for enabling me to be audacious in championing and validating maximalist, decadent, dark, weird, and Camp writing and literature.
I now take my bow, flicking back my crimson velour coattails; slowly and elegantly raise myself upright; fwop open my fan festooned with ostrich feathers and Swarovski crystals, giving it a flutter; gift you a little wink and blown kiss; then prance off the stage with my hand holding the fan the last to disappear behind the blood and hookah-smoke-stained curtain.
©2025 Brian Wood-Koiwa