Dowson’s Excesses and Poetics

Ernest Dowson (1867-1900), the archetypal Décadent poet, is still as relevant as ever, if not more so, in the 21st century. Did Dowson’s excesses merely consign him to being one of the also-rans of Victorian poetry? Or, rather, were his addiction and self-degradation not somehow related to the unfol...

Täydet tiedot

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Bibliografiset tiedot
Julkaisussa:URI:https://journals.openedition.org/cve,
Päätekijä: Grafe, Adrian
Aineistotyyppi: Article ou chapitre numérique
Kieli:Anglais
Julkaistu: Cahiers victoriens et édouardiens 2023
Linkit:Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
Kuvaus
Yhteenveto:Ernest Dowson (1867-1900), the archetypal Décadent poet, is still as relevant as ever, if not more so, in the 21st century. Did Dowson’s excesses merely consign him to being one of the also-rans of Victorian poetry? Or, rather, were his addiction and self-degradation not somehow related to the unfolding of his technically innovative poetics? The 1890s were nothing if not a time of excess. The fin de siècle poets, almost all of whom had tragically overshort lives (and not by accident, either), were excessively aesthetic, drunk, and wild(e)—and none more so than Dowson.