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{{Short description|Late 19th-century movement}}
[[File:Félicien_Rops_-_Pornokratès_-_1878.jpg|thumb|The 1878 ''[[Pornocrates|Pornokratès]]'' by Belgian artist [[Félicien Rops]]|387x387px]]

The '''Decadent movement''' (from the [[French language|French]] ''décadence'', {{Literal translation|decay}}) was a late 19th-century [[Art movement|artistic]] and [[literary movement|literary]] movement, centered in [[Western Europe]], that followed an aesthetic ideology of excess and artificiality.

The Decadent movement first flourished in France and then spread throughout Europe and to the United States.<ref>Dictionary of Critical Theory – Oxford Reference, pp.113–114</ref> The movement was characterized by a belief in the superiority of [[Fantasy (psychology)|human fantasy]]<ref name="GautierT_(1868)"/><ref name="Weir1995" /><ref name=":1" /> and [[Hedonism#Aesthetic hedonism|aesthetic hedonism]]<ref name="Stephan1974"/><ref name=":9"/><ref name=":10"/><ref name="DesmaraisJ_(2013)"/><ref name="AdamsJ_(2008)"/><ref name="BuggeP_(2006)"/><ref name="PynsentR_(1973)"/> over [[logic]] and the [[Nature|natural world]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Against the Grain|url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924088939974|last=Huysmans|first=Joris-Karl|publisher=Lieber & Lewis|year=1922|via=Project Gutenberg}}</ref><ref name=":5">{{Cite book|title=Symbolist Landscapes: The Place of Painting in the Poetry and Criticism of Mallarmé and His Circle|last=Kearns|first=James|publisher=MHRA|year=1989|isbn=0-947623-23-X|page=15}}</ref>

==Overview==
The concept of decadence dates to the 18th century, especially from the writings of [[Montesquieu]], the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] philosopher who suggested that the decline (''[[decadence|décadence]]'') of the Roman Empire was in large part due to its moral decay and loss of cultural standards.<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://www.constitution.org/cm/ccgrd_l.htm|title=Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline|last=Montesquieu|first=Charles-Louis de Secondat|publisher=The Free Press, New York. Collier-Macmillan, London.|others=Translated by David Lowenthal|year=1965|via=Constitution Society}}</ref> When Latin scholar [[Désiré Nisard]] turned toward French literature, he compared [[Victor Hugo]] and [[Romanticism]] in general to the Roman decadence, men sacrificing their craft and their cultural values for the sake of pleasure. The trends that he identified, such as an interest in description, a lack of adherence to the conventional rules of literature and art, and a love for extravagant language, were the seeds of the Decadent movement.<ref name="DesmaraisJ_(2013)">{{Cite journal|last=Desmarais|first=Jane|year=2013 |editor=Jane Ford |editor2=Kim Edwards Keates |editor3=Patricia Pulham |title=Perfume Clouds: Olfaction, Memory, and Desire in Arthur Symon's London Nights (1895)|journal=Economies of Desire at the Victorian Fin de Siècle: Libidinal Lives|pages=62–82}}</ref>

===French Decadent movement===
The first major development in French decadence appeared when writers [[Théophile Gautier]] and [[Charles Baudelaire]] used the word proudly to represent a rejection of what they considered banal "progress".<ref name="Drowninginlimbo">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0947757813|title=An anthology of French symbolist & decadent writing|publisher=Atlas Press|year=1994|isbn=0-947757-81-3|page=12|author=Remy de Gourmont|access-date=15 April 2014}}</ref> Baudelaire referred to himself as decadent in his 1857 edition of ''[[Les Fleurs du mal]]'' and exalted the Roman decline as a model for modern poets to express their passion. He later used the term ''decadence'' to include the subversion of traditional categories in pursuit of full, sensual expression.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book|title=Five Faces of Modernity: Modernism, Avant-garde, Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism|last=Calinescu|first=Matei|publisher=Duke University|year=1987}}</ref> In his lengthy introduction to Baudelaire in the front of the 1868 ''Les Fleurs du mal'', Gautier at first rejects the application of the term decadent, as meant by the critic, but then works his way to an admission of decadence on Baudelaire's own terms: a preference for what is beautiful and what is exotic, an ease with surrendering to fantasy, and a maturity of skill with manipulating language.<ref name="GautierT_(1868)">{{Cite journal|last=Gautier|first=Theophile|year=1868|others=Collection authored by Charles Baudelaire|title=Charles Baudelaire|journal=Les Fleurs du Mal|via=WikiSource (France)}}</ref>

The Belgian [[Félicien Rops]] was instrumental in the development of this early stage of the Decadent movement. A friend of Baudelaire,<ref name=":6">{{Cite book|title=The Censorship Effect: Baudelaire, Flaubert, and the Formation of French Modernism|last=Olmsted|first=William|publisher=Oxford|year=2016|isbn=978-0-19-023863-6}}</ref> he was a frequent illustrator of Baudelaire's writing, at the request of the author himself. Rops delighted in breaking artistic convention and shocking the public with gruesome, fantastical horror. He was explicitly interested in the Satanic, and he frequently sought to portray the double-threat of Satan and Woman.<ref name=":7">{{Cite book|title=Egoists, a Book of Supermen: Stendahl, Baudelaire, Flaubert, Anatole France, Huysmans, Barrès, Nietzsche, Blake, Ibsen, Stirner, and Ernest Hello|last=Huneker|first=James|year=1909|publisher=AMS Press |isbn=0-404-10525-4|via=Kindle Edition}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=The Colour of Angels: Cosmology, Gender and the Aesthetic Imaginatio|last=Classen|first=Constance|publisher=Routledge|year=1998|isbn=0-415-18074-0}}</ref> At times, his only goal was the portrayal of a woman he'd observed debasing herself in the pursuit of her own pleasure.<ref name="AdamsJ_(2008)">{{Cite book|title=Hideous Absinthe: A History of the Devil in a Bottle|last=Adams|first=Jad|publisher=Tauris Parke|year=2008|isbn=978-1-84511-684-2}}</ref> It has been suggested that, no matter how horrific and perverse his images could be, Rops' invocation of supernatural elements was sufficient to keep Baudelaire situated in a spiritually aware universe that maintained a cynical kind of hope, even if the poetry "requires a strong stomach".<ref name=":6" /> Their work was the worship of beauty disguised as the worship of evil.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Charles Baudelaire: A Study|last=Symons|first=Arthur|publisher=Eklin Matthews|year=1920|via=Gutenberg Project}}</ref> For both of them, mortality and all manner of corruptions were always on their mind.<ref name=":7" /> The ability of Rops to see and portray the same world as they did made him a popular illustrator for other Decadent authors.<ref name=":6" />

The concept of decadence lingered after that, but it was not until 1884 that [[Maurice Barrès]] referred to a particular group of writers as ''Decadents''. He defined this group as those who had been influenced heavily by Baudelaire, though they were also influenced by [[Gothic fiction|Gothic novels]] and the poetry and fiction of [[Edgar Allan Poe]]. Many were associated with [[Symbolism (movement)|Symbolism]], others with [[Aestheticism]].<ref name="Weir1995">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WOb26cxGBfMC&pg=PA16|title=Decadence and the Making of Modernism|publisher=Univ of Massachusetts Press|year=1995|isbn=978-0-87023-992-2|page=16|first=David|last=Weir|access-date=16 April 2012}}</ref><ref name="Stephan1974">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hRoNAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA165|title=Paul Verlaine and the Decadence, 1882–90|first=Philip|publisher=Manchester University Press ND|year=1974|isbn=978-0-7190-0562-6|author=Stephan|access-date=18 February 2017}}</ref><ref>[http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/symbolist/texts/decadence_chronology.html A Chronology] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180606155745/http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/symbolist/texts/decadence_chronology.html |date=2018-06-06 }}, retrieved December 24, 2009</ref> The pursuit of these authors, according to [[Arthur Symons]], was "a desperate endeavor to give sensation, to flash the impression of the moment, to preserve the very heat and motion of life", and their achievement, as he saw it, was "to be a disembodied voice, and yet the voice of a human soul".<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://harpers.org/sponsor/balvenie/arthur-symons.1.html|title=The Decadent Movement in Literature|last=Symons|first=Arthur|date=1893|website=Harpers.org|access-date=18 February 2017}}</ref>
[[File:Apostel Bartolomeüs levend gevild, RP-P-OB-44.221.jpg|thumb|''Apostle Bartolomew flayed alive'', by [[Jan Luyken]], 1685]]

In his 1884 Decadent novel {{lang|fr|[[À rebours]]}} (English: ''Against Nature'' or ''Against the Grain''), [[Joris-Karl Huysmans]] identified likely candidates for the core of the Decadent movement, which he seemed to view Baudelaire as sitting above [[Paul Verlaine]], [[Tristan Corbière]], [[Theodore Hannon]] and [[Stéphane Mallarmé]]. His character Des Esseintes hailed these writers for their creativity and their craftsmanship, suggesting that they filled him with "insidious delight" as they used a "secret language" to explore "twisted and precious ideas".<ref name=":1" />

Not only did ''À rebours'' define an ideology and a literature, but it also created an influential perspective on visual art. The character of Des Esseintes explicitly heralded the paintings of [[Gustave Moreau]], the 17th-century Dutch engraver [[Jan Luyken]]'s illustrations to the ''[[Martyrs Mirror]]'' and the [[lithograph]]s of [[Rodolphe Bresdin]] and [[Odilon Redon]].<ref>[https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/%C3%80_rebours/Texte_entier Joris-Karl Huysmans, ''À rebours''] at wikisource</ref>  The choice of these works established a decadent perspective on art which favored madness and irrationality, graphic violence, frank pessimism about cultural institutions, and a disregard for visual logic of the natural world. It has been suggested that a dream vision that Des Esseintes describes is based on the series of satanic encounters painted by Félicien Rops.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Valazza|first=Nicolas|year=2010 |editor=Amaleena Damle |editor2=Aurelie L'Hostis |title=The Flower and the Monster: On Huysmans' Painters|journal=The Beautiful and the Monstrous: Essays in French Literature, Thought and Culture|series=Modern French Identities|page=96|via=Google Books}}</ref>
[[File:Le Décadent 2 octobre 1886.jpg|thumb|200px|Title page of the magazine ''Le Décadent'']]

Capitalizing on the momentum of Huysmans' work, Anatole Baju founded the magazine ''Le Décadent'' in 1886, an effort to define and organize the Decadent movement in a formal way. This group of writers did not only look to escape the boredom of the banal, but they sought to shock, scandalize, and subvert the expectations and values of society, believing that such freedom and creative experimentation would improve humanity.<ref name=":2" />

Not everyone was comfortable with Baju and ''Le Décadent'', even including some who had been published in its pages. Rival writer [[Jean Moréas]] published his [[Symbolist Manifesto]], largely to escape association with the Decadent movement, despite their shared heritage. Moréas and [[Gustave Kahn]], among others, formed rival publications to reinforce the distinction.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book|title=Legitimizing the Artist: Manifesto Writing and European Modernism, 1885–1915|last=Somigli|first=Luca|publisher=University of Toronto|year=2003|isbn=1-4426-5773-1}}</ref> Paul Verlaine embraced the label at first, applauding it as a brilliant marketing choice by Baju. After seeing his own words exploited and tiring of ''Le Décadent'' publishing works falsely attributed to [[Arthur Rimbaud]], however, Verlaine came to sour on Baju personally, and he eventually rejected the label, as well.<ref name="Stephan1974" />

Decadence continued on in France, but it was limited largely to Anatole Baju and his followers, who refined their focus even further on perverse sexuality, material extravagance, and up-ending social expectations. Far-fetched plots were acceptable if they helped generate the desired moments of salacious experience or glorification of the morbid and grotesque. Writers who embraced the sort of decadence featured in ''Le Décadent'' include [[Albert Aurier]], [[Rachilde]], Pierre Vareilles, [[Miguel Hernández]], [[Jean Lorrain]] and [[Laurent Tailhade]]. Many of these authors did also publish symbolist works, however, and it unclear how strongly they would have identified with Baju as Decadents.<ref name=":2" /><ref name="Stephan1974" />

In France, the Decadent movement is often said to have begun with either [[Joris-Karl Huysmans]]' ''Against Nature'' (1884) or Baudelaire's ''Les Fleurs du mal''.<ref>[http://www.studiocleo.com/librarie/baudelaire/essay.html ''Baudelaire and the Decadent Movement''] by [[Paul Bourget]], retrieved December 24, 2009</ref> This movement essentially gave way to Symbolism when ''Le Décadent'' closed down in 1889 and Anatole Baju turned toward politics and became associated with anarchy.<ref name=":2" /> A few writers continued the Decadent tradition, such as [[Octave Mirbeau]], but Decadence was no longer a recognized movement, let alone a force in literature or art.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book|title=The First Moderns: Profiles in the Origins of Twentieth-Century Thought|last=Everdell|first=William R.|publisher=University of Chicago|year=1997|isbn=978-0-226-22481-7|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780226224817}}</ref>

Beginning with the association of decadence with cultural decline, it is not uncommon to associate decadence in general with transitional times and their associated moods of pessimism and uncertainty. In France, the heart of the Decadent movement was during the 1880s and 1890s, the time of ''[[fin de siècle]]'', or end-of-the-century gloom.<ref name=":4" /> As part of that overall transition, many scholars of Decadence, such as [[David Weir (academic)|David Weir]], regard Decadence as a dynamic transition between [[Romanticism]] and [[Modernism]], especially considering the Decadent tendency to dehumanize and distort in the name of pleasure and fantasy.<ref name="Weir1995" />

=== Distinction from Symbolism ===
[[Symbolism (movement)|Symbolism]] has often been confused with the Decadent movement. [[Arthur Symons]], a British poet and literary critic contemporary with the movement, at one time considered Decadence in literature to be a parent category that included both Symbolism and [[Impressionism (literature)|Impressionism]], as rebellions against realism. He defined this common, decadent thread as "an intense self-consciousness, a restless curiosity in research, an over-subtilizing refinement upon refinement, a spiritual and moral perversity". He referred to all such literature as "a new and beautiful and interesting disease".<ref name=":0" /> Later, however, he described the Decadent movement as an "interlude, half a mock interlude" that distracted critics from seeing and appreciating the larger and more important trend, which was the development of Symbolism.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Symbolist Movement in Literature|url=https://archive.org/details/SymbolistMovementInLiterature|last=Symons|first=Arthur|publisher=E. P. Dutton|year=1919}}</ref>

It is true that the two groups share an ideological descent from [[Charles Baudelaire|Baudelaire]] and for a time they both considered themselves as part of one sphere of new, anti-establishment literature. They worked together and met together for quite a while, as if they were part of the same movement.<ref name=":4" /> Maurice Barrès referred to this group as decadents, but he also referred to one of them ([[Stéphane Mallarmé]]) as a symbolist. Even [[Jean Moréas]] used both terms for his own group of writers as late as 1885.<ref name="Stephan1974" />

Only a year later, however, [[Jean Moréas]] wrote his [[Symbolist Manifesto]] to assert a difference between the symbolists with whom he allied himself and this the new group of decadents associated with Anatole Baju and ''Le Décadent''.<ref name="Stephan1974" /><ref name=":3" /> Even after this, there was sufficient common ground of interest, method, and language to blur the lines more than the manifesto might have suggested.<ref name="Stephan1974" />

In the world of visual arts, it can be even more difficult to distinguish Decadence from Symbolism. In fact, Stephen Romer has referred to [[Félicien Rops]], [[Gustave Moreau]], and [[Fernand Khnopff]] as "Symbolist–Decadent painters and engravers".<ref>{{Cite book|title=French Decadent Tales|last=Romer|first=Stephen|publisher=Oxford|year=2013|isbn=978-0-19-956927-4}}</ref>

Nevertheless, there are clear ideological differences between those who continued on as symbolists and those who have been called "dissidents" for remaining in the Decadent movement.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Stephan|first=Philip|year=1972|title=Naturalist Influences on Symbolist Poetry, 1882–86.|journal=The French Review|volume=46|pages=299–311}}</ref> Often, there was little doubt that Baju and his group were producing work that was decadent, but there is frequently more question about the work of the symbolists.<ref name="Stephan1974" />

==== On nature ====
Both groups reject the primacy of nature, but what that means for them is very different. Symbolism uses extensive natural imagery as a means to elevate the viewer to a plane higher than the banal reality of nature itself, as when Stéphane Mallarmé mixes descriptions of flowers and heavenly imagery to create a transcendent moment in "Flowers".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/54372|title=Flowers|last=Mallarmé|first=Stéphane|website=Poetry Foundation|access-date=18 February 2017}}</ref>

Decadence, in contrast, actually belittles nature in the name of artistry. In Huysmans' ''Against Nature'', for instance, the main character Des Esseintes says of nature: "There is not one of her inventions, no matter how subtle or imposing it may be, which human genius cannot create ... There can be no doubt about it: this eternal, driveling, old woman is no longer admired by true artists, and the moment has come to replace her by artifice."<ref name=":1" />

==== On language and imagery ====
Symbolism treats language and imagery as devices that can only approximate meaning and merely evoke complex emotions and call the mind toward ideas it might not be able to comprehend. In the words of symbolist poet [[Stéphane Mallarmé]]:<blockquote>Languages are imperfect because multiple; the supreme language is missing...no one can utter words which would bear the miraculous stamp of Truth Herself Incarnate...how impossible it is for language to express things...in the Poet's hands...by the consistent virtue and necessity of an art which lives on fiction, it achieves its full efficacy.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Mallarmé|first=Stéphane|year=1956|others=Translated by Bradford Cook|title=from Crisis in Poetry|url=https://www.amherst.edu/system/files/media/0076/mallarme.PDF|journal=Mallarmé: Selected Prose Poems, Essays & Letters|via=Scan from an un-cited anthology on Amerhert's website}}</ref></blockquote>Moréas asserted in his manifesto on Symbolism that words and images serve to dress the incomprehensible in such a way that it can be approached, if not understood.<ref name=":14">{{Cite web|url=http://www.mutablesound.com/home/?p=2165|title=Symbolist Manifesto|last=Moréas|first=Jean|date=1886|website=Mutable Sound|others=Translated by C. Liszt|access-date=18 February 2017|archive-date=19 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170219031747/http://www.mutablesound.com/home/?p=2165}}</ref>

Decadence, on the other hand, sees no path to higher truth in words and images. Instead, books, poetry, and art itself are seen as the creators of valid new worlds, thus the allegory of decadent Wilde's [[Dorian Gray (character)|Dorian Gray]] being poisoned by a book like a drug. Words and artifice are the vehicles for human creativity, and Huysmans suggests that the illusions of fantasy have their own reality: "The secret lies in knowing how to proceed, how to concentrate deeply enough to produce the hallucination and succeed in substituting the dream reality for the reality itself."<ref name=":1" />

==== On reality, illusion, and truth ====
Both groups are disillusioned with the meaning and [[truth]] offered by the natural world, rational thought, and ordinary society. Symbolism turns its eyes toward Greater Purpose or on the Ideal, using dreams and symbols to approach these esoteric primal truths. In Mallarmé's poem "Apparition", for instance, the word "dreaming" appears twice, followed by "Dream" itself with a capital D. In "The Windows", he speaks of this decadent disgust of contentment with comfort and an endless desire for the exotic. He writes: "So filled with disgust for the man whose soul is callous, sprawled in comforts where his hungering is fed." In this continuing search for the spiritual, therefore, [[Symbolism (movement)|Symbolism]] has been predisposed to concern itself with purity and beauty and such mysterious imagery as those of [[Fairy|fairies]].

In contrast, Decadence states there is no oblique approach to ultimate truth because there is no secret, mystical truth. They despise the very idea of searching for such a thing. If there is truth of value, it is purely in the sensual experience of the moment. The heroes of Decadent novels, for instance, have the unquenchable accumulation of luxuries and pleasure, often exotic, as their goal, even the gory and the shocking.<ref name=":1" /> In ''[[The Temptation of Saint Anthony (novel)|The Temptation of Saint Anthony]]'', decadent [[Gustave Flaubert]] describes Saint Anthony's pleasure from watching disturbing scenes of horror. Later Czech decadent [[Arthur Breisky]] has been quoted by scholars as speaking to both the importance of illusion and of beauty: "But isn't it necessary to believe a beautiful mask more than reality?"<ref name="BuggeP_(2006)">{{Cite journal|last=Bugge|first=Peter|year=2006|title=Naked Masks: Arthur Breisky or How to Be a Czech Decadent|url=http://slovoasmysl.ff.cuni.cz/node/123|journal=Word and Sense: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Theory and Criticism in Czech Studies|access-date=19 February 2017|via=Word and Sense website}}</ref>

==== On art ====
Ultimately, the distinction may best be seen in their approach to art. Symbolism is an accumulation of "symbols" that are there not to present their content but to evoke greater ideas that their symbolism cannot expressly utter. According to Moréas, it is an attempt to connect the objects and phenomena of the world to "esoteric primordial truths" that cannot ever be directly approached.<ref name=":14" />

Decadence, on the other hand, is an accumulation of signs or descriptions acting as detailed catalogs of human material riches as well as artifice.{{citation needed|date=March 2024}} It was Oscar Wilde who perhaps laid this out most clearly in ''[[The Decay of Lying]]'' with the suggestion of three doctrines on art, here excerpted into a list:
# "Art never expresses anything but itself."
# "All bad art comes from returning to Life and Nature, and elevating them into ideals."
# "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life"
After which, he suggested a conclusion quite in contrast to Moréas' search for shadow truth: "Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art."<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Wilde_1889.html|title=The Decay of Lying|last=Wilde|first=Oscar|year=1889|access-date=27 February 2017}}</ref>

== Influence and legacy ==

=== Collapse of the Decadent movement ===
In France, the Decadent movement could not withstand the loss of its leading figures. Many of those associated with the Decadent movement became symbolists after initially associating freely with decadents. [[Paul Verlaine]] and [[Stéphane Mallarmé]] were among those, though both had been associated with Baju's ''Le Décadent'' for a time.<ref name="Stephan1974" /> Others kept a foot in each camp. [[Albert Aurier]] wrote decadent pieces for ''Le Décadent'' and also wrote symbolist poetry and art criticism.<ref name=":5" /> Decadent writer Rachilde was staunchly opposed to a symbolist take over of ''Le Décadent''<ref name="Stephan1974" /> even though her own one-act drama ''The Crystal Spider'' is almost certainly a symbolist work.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Kiebuzinska|first=Christine|year=1994|title=Behind the Mirror: Madame Rachilde's "The Crystal Spider"|journal=Modern Language Studies|volume=24|issue=3|pages=28–43|doi=10.2307/3194845|jstor=3194845}}</ref> Others, once strong voices for decadence, abandoned the movement altogether. Joris-Karl Huysmans grew to consider ''Against Nature'' as the starting point on his journey into Roman Catholic symbolist work and the acceptance of hope.<ref name=":2" /> Anatole Baju, once the self-appointed school-master of French decadence, came to think of the movement as naive and half-hearted, willing to tinker and play with social realities, but not to utterly destroy them. He left decadence for anarchy.<ref name=":2" />

=== The Decadent movement beyond France ===
While the Decadent movement, per se, was mostly a French phenomenon, the impact was felt more broadly. Typically, the influence was felt as an interest in pleasure, an interest in experimental sexuality, and a fascination with the bizarre, all packaged with a somewhat [[Transgressive fiction|transgressive]] spirit and an aesthetic that values material excess.<ref name=":9">{{Cite book|title=The Picture of Dorian Gray: An Annotated, Uncensored Edition|last=Wilde|first=Oscar|publisher=Harvard University|year=2011|editor-last=Frankel|editor-first=Nicholas}}</ref>  Many were also influenced by the Decadent movement's aesthetic emphasis on art for its own sake.<ref name=":10">{{Cite journal|last=Robbins|first=Ruth|year=2015 |editor=Jane Ford |editor2=Kim Edwards Keates |editor3=Patricia Pulham |title=Always Leave Them Wanting More: Oscar Wilde's Salmoe and the Failed Circulations of Desire|journal=Economies of Desire at the Victorian Fin de Siècle: Libidinal Lives|pages=21–34|isbn=978-1-317-57658-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=roy9CgAAQBAJ&q=Always%20leave%20them}}</ref>

====Bohemia====

Czech writers who were exposed to the work of the Decadent movement saw in it the promise of a life they could never know. These Bohemian decadent writers included [[Karel Hlaváček]], Arnošt Procházka, [[Jiří Karásek ze Lvovic]], and Louisa Zikova. One Czech writer, [[Arthur Breisky]], embraced the full spirit of ''Le Décadent'' with its exultation in material excess and a life of refinement and pleasure. From the Decadent movement he learned the basic idea of a [[dandy]], and his work is almost entirely focused on developing a philosophy in which the Dandy is the consummate human, surrounded by riches and elegance, theoretically above society, just as doomed to death and despair as they.<ref name="PynsentR_(1973)">{{Cite journal|last=Pynsent|first=Robert|year=1973|title=A Czech Dandy: An Introduction to Arthur Breisky|journal=The Slavonic and East European Review|volume=51}}</ref>

====Britain====
[[File:Beardsley-peacockskirt.PNG|thumb|upright|Aubrey Beardsley, ''[[The Peacock Skirt]]'', illustration for [[Oscar Wilde]]'s ''[[Salome (play)|Salome]]'', 1892]]

Influenced through general exposure but also direct contact, the leading decadent figures in Britain associated with decadence were Irish writer [[Oscar Wilde]], poet [[Algernon Charles Swinburne]], and illustrator [[Aubrey Beardsley]], as well as other artists and writers associated with ''[[The Yellow Book]]''. Others, such as [[Walter Pater]], resisted association with the movement, even though their works seemed to reflect similar ideals.<ref name=":11">{{Cite book|title=The Decadent Republic of Letters: Taste, Politics, and Cosmopolitan Community from Baudelaire to Beardsley|last=Potolsky|first=Matthew|publisher=University of Pennsylvania|year=2012|isbn=978-0-8122-4449-6}}</ref> While most of the influence was from figures such as Baudelaire and Verlaine, there was also very strong influence at times from more purely decadent members of the French movement, such as the influence that Huysmans and Rachilde had on Wilde, as seen explicitly in ''The Picture of Dorian Gray''.<ref name=":9" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/october/rachilde-wilde-discovery-10-21-2014.html|title=Rebellious French cross-dresser played an overlooked role in shaping Oscar Wilde's legacy, Stanford scholar says|last=Beacock|first=Ian|date=21 October 2014|website=Stanford News|others=Scholarship by Petra Dierkes-Thrun|access-date=19 February 2017}}</ref> British decadents embraced the idea of creating art for its own sake, pursuing all possible desires, and seeking material excess.<ref name=":10" /> At the same time, they were not shy about using the tools of decadence for social and political purpose. Beardsley had an explicit interest in the improvement of the social order and the role of art-as-experience in inspiring that transformation.<ref name=":11" /> Oscar Wilde published an entire work exploring socialism as a liberating force: "Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others which, in the present condition of things, presses so hardly upon almost everybody."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Soul of Man Under Socialism|last=Wilde|first=Oscar|publisher=Arthur L. Humphreys|year=1909|via=Gutenberg Project}}</ref> Swinburne explicitly addressed Irish-English politics in poetry when he wrote "Thieves and murderers, hands yet red with blood and tongues yet black with lies | Clap and clamour – 'Parnell spurs his Gladstone well!{{'"}}<ref>{{Cite book|last=Swinburne|first=Algernon Charles|year=1886|chapter=The Commonweal: A Song for Unionists|title=A Channel Passage and Other Poems|via=Gutenberg Project}}</ref> In many of their personal lives, they also pursued decadent ideals. Wilde had a secret homosexual life.<ref name=":9" /> Swinburne had an obsession with flagellation.<ref name=":11" />

====Italy====
[[File:Medardo_rosso,_enfant_malade,_1903-04,_bronzo.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Medardo Rosso]], ''Sick child'', 1903–04]]

Italian literary criticism has often looked at the decadent movement on a larger scale, proposing that its main features could be used to define a full historical period, running from the 1860s to the 1920s. For this reason, the term [[:it:Decadentismo|Decadentism]], modeled on "Romanticism" or "Expressionism", became more substantial and widespread than elsewhere. However, most critics today prefer to distinguish between three periods. The first period is marked by the experience of [[Scapigliatura]], a sort of proto-decadent movement. The Scapigliati (literally meaning "unkempt" or "dishevelled") were a group of writers and poets who shared a sentiment of intolerance for the suffocating intellectual atmosphere between the late [[Risorgimento]] (1860s) and the early years of [[Kingdom of Italy|unified Italy]] (1870s). They contributed to rejuvenate Italian culture through foreign influences and introduced decadent themes like illness and fascination with death. The novel [[Fosca (novel)|''Fosca'']] (1869) by [[Iginio Ugo Tarchetti|Igino Ugo Tarchetti]] tells of a love triangle involving a codependent man, a married woman and an ugly, sick and vampire-like figure, the femme fatale Fosca. In a similar way, [[Camillo Boito]]'s [[Senso (novel)|''Senso'']] and his short stories venture into tales of sexual decadence and disturbing obsessions, such as incest and necrophilia. Other Scapigliati were the novelists [[Carlo Dossi]] and [[Giuseppe Rovani]], the poet [[Emilio Praga]], the poet and composer [[Arrigo Boito]] and the composer [[Franco Faccio]]. As for the visual arts, [[Medardo Rosso]] stands out as one of the most influential European sculptors of that time. Most of the Scapigliati died of illness, alcoholism or suicide. The second period of Italian Decadentism is dominated by [[Gabriele D'Annunzio]], [[Antonio Fogazzaro]] and [[Giovanni Pascoli]]. D'Annunzio, who was in contact with many French intellectuals and had read the works of [[Friedrich Nietzsche|Nietzsche]] in the French translation, imported the concepts of [[Übermensch]] and [[will to power]] into Italy, although in his own particular version. The poet's aim had to be an extreme aestheticization of life, and life the ultimate work of art. Recurrent themes in his literary works include the supremacy of the individual, the cult of beauty, exaggerated sophistication, the glorification of machines, the fusion of man with nature, the exalted vitality coexisting with the triumph of death. His novel [[Il Piacere|''The Pleasure'']], published one year before ''The Picture of Dorian Gray'', is considered one of the three genre-defining books of the Decadent movement, along with Wilde's novel and Huysmans's ''Against Nature''. Less flashy and more isolated than D'Annunzio, and close to the French symbolists, Pascoli redefined poetry as a means of clairvoyance to regain the purity of things. Finally, the third period, which can be seen as a postlude to Decadentism, is marked by the voices of [[Italo Svevo]], [[Luigi Pirandello]] and the [[Crepuscolari|Crepusculars]]. Svevo, with his novel ''[[Zeno's Conscience]]'', took the idea of sickness to its logical conclusion, while Pirandello proceeded to the extreme disintegration of the self with works such as ''[[The Late Mattia Pascal]]'', ''[[Six Characters in Search of an Author]]'' and [[One, No One and One Hundred Thousand|''One, No One, and One Hundred Thousand'']]. On the other side, the Crepuscular poets (literally "twilight poets") turned Pascoli's innovations into a mood-conveying poetry, which describes the melancholy of everyday life in shady and monotonous interiors of provincial towns. These atmospheres were explored by the painters [[Mario Sironi]], [[Giorgio de Chirico]] and [[Giorgio Morandi]]. [[Guido Gozzano]] was the most brilliant and ironic of the Crepusculars, but we can also remember [[Sergio Corazzini]], [[Marino Moretti]] and [[Aldo Palazzeschi]].

====Russia====
[[File:Evfimia Nosova (Ryabushinskaya) by N.Feofilaktov (1913, priv.coll).jpg|thumb|Portrait of {{ill|Euphemia Pavlova Nosova|ru|Носова, Евфимия Павловна}} by [[Nikolai Kalmakov]]]]

The Decadent movement reached into Russia primarily through exposure to the writings of Charles Baudelaire and Paul Verlaine. The earliest Russian adherents lacked idealism and focused on such decadent themes as subversion of morality, disregard for personal health, and living in blasphemy and sensual pleasure. Russian writers were especially drawn to the morbid aspects of decadence and in the fascination with death. Dmitry Merezhkovsky is thought to be the first to clearly promote a Russian decadence that included the idealism that eventually inspired the French symbolists to disassociate from the more purely materialistic Decadent movement. The first Russian writers to achieve success as followers of this Decadent movement included Konstanin Balmont, [[Fyodor Sologub]], [[Valery Bryusov]], and [[Zinaida Gippius]]. As they refined their craft beyond imitation of Baudelaire and Verlaine, most of these authors became much more clearly aligned with Symbolism than with Decadence.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bristol|first=Evelyn|year=1980|title=Idealism and Decadence in Russian Symbolist Poetry|journal=Slavic Review|volume=39|issue=2|pages=269–280|doi=10.2307/2496789|jstor=2496789|s2cid=164152302 }}</ref> Some visual artists adhered to the Baju-esque late Decadent movement approach to sexuality as purely an act of pleasure, often ensconced in a context of material luxury. They also shared the same emphasis on shocking society, purely for the scandal. Among them were [[Konstantin Somov]], [[Nikolai Kalmakov]], and Nikolay Feofilaktov.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bowlt|first=John E.|year=1982|title=Through the Glass Darkly: Images of Decadence in Early Twentieth-Century Russian Art|journal=Journal of Contemporary History|volume=17|pages=93–110|doi=10.1177/002200948201700105|s2cid=162216729}}</ref>

====Spain====
[[File:Jove decadent.jpg|thumb|''A Decadent Girl'', by [[Ramón Casas]], 1899]]
Some art historians consider [[Francisco de Goya]] one of the roots of the Decadent movement in Spain, almost 100 years before its start in France. His works were a cry of denouncement against injustice and oppression. However, Ramón Casas and José María López Mezquita can be considered the model artists of this period. Their paintings are an image of the social conflicts and police repression that was happening in Spain at the time.

Spanish writers also wanted to be part of this movement, such as [[Emilia Pardo Bazán]], with works like ''[[The House of Ulloa|Los pazos de Ulloa]]'', where terror and Decadent topics appear. ''[[El monstruo]]'' ("The Monster"), written by {{ill|Antonio de Hoyos y Vinent|es}}, belongs to the Decadent movement. But the Decadent movement is overlapped by the [[Fin de Siglo Movement]], with the authors of the [[Generation of '98|Generación del 98]] being part-Decadent: [[Ramón María del Valle-Inclán]], [[Miguel de Unamuno|Unamuno]] and [[Pío Baroja]] are the most essential figures of this period.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Cambridge Companion to the Spanish Novel: From 1600 to the Present|url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgecompani00harr_0|url-access=registration|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2003|isbn= 978-1-139-00022-2 |pages= [https://archive.org/details/cambridgecompani00harr_0/page/138 138]}}</ref>

====United States====
Few prominent writers or artists in the [[United States]] were connected with the Decadent movement. Those who were connected struggled to find an audience, for Americans were reluctant to see value for them in what they considered the art forms of [[fin de siècle]] France.<ref name=":12">{{Cite book|title=Landscapes of Decadence: Literature and Place at the Fin de Siècle|last=Murray|first=Alex|publisher=Cambridge|year=2016|isbn=978-1-107-16966-1}}</ref> An exception to this is the decadent poet [[George Sylvester Viereck]], who wrote (1907) "Nineveh and Other Poems". Viereck states in his "The Candle and the Flame" (1912):

{{blockquote|I have no reason to be ungrateful to America. Few poets have met with more instant recognition... My work almost from the beginning was discussed simultaneously in the most conservative periodicals and the most ultra-saffron complexioned journals I have given a new lyric impetus to my country I have loosened the tongue of young American poets. I have been told by many of our young singers that my success of Nineveh [1907] encouraged them to break the harassing chains of Puritan tradition [Introduction p.xv] }}

Poet [[Francis Saltus Saltus]] was inspired by Charles Baudelaire, and his unpracticed style occasionally was compared to the French poet's more refined experimentation. He embraced the most debauched lifestyle of the French decadents and celebrated that life in his own poetry. At the time, mostly before Baju's ''Le Décadent'', this frivolous poetry on themes of alcohol and depravity found little success and no known support from those who were part of the Decadent movement.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Man in the Mirror: William Marion Reedy and His Magazine|last=Putzel|first=Max|publisher=University of Missouri|year=1998|page=43}}</ref> The younger brother of Francis, writer [[Edgar Saltus]] had more success. He had some interaction with Oscar Wilde, and he valued decadence in his personal life. For a time, his work exemplified both the ideals and style of the movement, but a significant portion of his career was in traditional journalism and fiction that praised virtue.<ref name=":13">{{Cite book|title=Decadent Culture in the United States: Art and Literature Against the American Grain, 1890 – 1926|last=Weir|first=David|publisher=State University of New York|year=2008|via=Google Books}}</ref> At the time when he was flourishing, however, multiple contemporary critics, as well as other decadent writers, explicitly considered him one of them.<ref name=":12" /> Writer James Huneker was exposed to the Decadent movement in France and tried to bring it with him to New York. He has been lauded to his dedication to this cause throughout his career, but it has been suggested that, while he lived as a decadent and heralded their work, his own work was more frustrated, hopeless, and empty of the pleasure that had attracted him to the movement in the first place. Largely, he focused on cynically describing the impossibility of a true American decadence.<ref name=":12" /><ref name=":13" />

== Critical studies ==
German doctor and social critic [[Max Nordau]] wrote a lengthy book titled ''[[Degeneration (Max Nordau)|Degeneration]]'' (1892). It was an examination of decadence as a trend, and specifically attacked several people associated with the Decadent movement, as well as other figures throughout the world who deviated from cultural, moral, or political norms. His language was colorful and vitriolic, often invoking the worship of Satan. What made the book a success was its suggestion of a medical diagnosis of "degeneration", a neuro-pathology that resulted in these behaviors. It also helped that the book named such figures as Oscar Wilde, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Paul Verlaine, and Maurice Barrès, members of the Decadent movement who were in the public eye.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=J. A.|year=1895|title=Max Nordau's Degeneration|url=https://archive.org/details/jstor-27527864|journal=The Sewanee Review}}</ref>

In 1930, Italian art and literature critic [[Mario Praz]] completed a broad study of morbid and erotic literature, translated and published in English as ''The Romantic Agony'' (1933). The study included decadent writing (such as Baudelaire and Swinburne), but also anything else that he considered dark, grim, or sexual in some way. His study centered on the 18th and 19th centuries. The danger of such literature, he believed, is that it unnaturally elevated the instinctive bond between pain and pleasure and that, no matter the artists' intention, the essential role of art is to educate and teach culture.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Mumford Jones|first=Howard|year=1936|title=Reviewed Work: The Romantic Agony. by Mario Praz, Angus Davidson|journal=Modern Language Notes}}</ref>

==Decadent authors and artists==

===Writers===
{{Div col|colwidth=20em}}
'''French'''
* [[Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly]] (1808–1889)
* [[Charles Baudelaire]] (1821–1867)
* [[Léon Bloy]] (1846–1917)
* [[Remy de Gourmont]] (1858–1915)
* [[Joris-Karl Huysmans]] (1848–1907)
* [[Jean Lorrain]] (1855–1906)
* [[Catulle Mendès]] (1841–1909)
* [[Octave Mirbeau]] (1848–1917)
* [[Robert de Montesquiou]] (1855–1921)
* [[Rachilde]] (1860–1953)
* [[Arthur Rimbaud]] (1854–1891)
* [[Marcel Schwob]] (1867–1905)
* [[Jane de La Vaudère]] (1857–1908)
* [[Paul Verlaine]] (1844–1896)
* [[Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam]] (1838–1889)
* [[Renée Vivien]] (1877–1909)
* [[George-Albert Aurier]] (1865–1892)

'''Austrian'''
* [[Peter Altenberg]] (1859–1919)
* [[Alfred Kubin]] (1877–1959)
* [[Arthur Schnitzler]] (1862–1931)

'''Russian'''
* [[Innokenty Annensky]] (1855–1909)
* [[Konstantin Balmont]] (1867–1942)
* [[Valery Bryusov]] (1873–1924)
* [[Zinaida Gippius]] (1869–1945)
* [[Dmitry Merezhkovsky]] (1866–1941)
* [[Nikolai Minsky]] (1855–1937)
* [[Fyodor Sologub]] (1863–1927)

'''British'''
* [[Aubrey Beardsley]] (1872–1898)
* [[Max Beerbohm]] (1872–1956)
* [[Richard Francis Burton]] (1821–1890)
* [[Ernest Dowson]] (1867–1900)
* [[Richard le Gallienne]] (1866–1947)
* [[Lafcadio Hearn]] (1850–1904)
* [[Vernon Lee]] (1856–1935)
* [[Arthur Machen]] (1863–1947)
* [[Charles Ricketts]] (1866–1931)
* [[Frederick Rolfe]] (1860–1913)
* [[M. P. Shiel]] (1865–1947)
* [[Algernon Charles Swinburne]] (1837–1909)
* [[Walter Pater]] (1839–1894)
* [[Arthur Symons]] (1865–1945)

'''Irish'''
* [[George Moore (novelist)|George Moore]] (1852–1933)
* [[Oscar Wilde]] (1854–1900)

'''Italian'''
* [[Arrigo Boito]] (1842–1918)
* [[Camillo Boito]] (1836–1914)
* [[Gabriele D'Annunzio]] (1863–1938)
* [[Antonio Fogazzaro]] (1842–1911)
* [[Guido Gozzano]] (1883–1916)
* [[Giovanni Pascoli]] (1855–1912)
* [[Luigi Pirandello]] (1867–1936)
* [[Italo Svevo]] (1861–1928)
* [[Iginio Ugo Tarchetti|Igino Ugo Tarchetti]] (1839–1869)

'''Polish'''
* [[Stanisław Przybyszewski]] (1868-1927) 
* [[Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer]] (1865-1940) 
* [[Tadeusz Miciński]] (1873-1918) 
* [[Antoni Lange]] (1862-1929) 
* [[Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz]] (1885-1939)

'''Belgian'''
* [[Jean Delville]] (1867–1953)
* [[Théodore Hannon]] (1851–1916)
* [[Camille Lemonnier]] (1844–1913)
* [[Georges Rodenbach]] (1855–1898)
* [[Emile Verhaeren]] (1855–1916)

'''Dutch'''
* [[Louis Couperus]] (1863–1923)
* [[Lodewijk van Deyssel]] (1864–1952)

'''Spanish'''
* {{ill|Melchor Almagro San Martín|es}} (1882–1947)
* [[Emilio Carrere]] (1881–1947)
* {{ill|Antonio de Hoyos y Vinent|es}} (c.1884–1940)
* {{ill|José María Llanas Aguilaniedo|es}} (1875–1921)
* {{ill|Isaac Muñoz|es}} (1881–1925)
* {{ill|Álvaro Retana|es}} (1890–1970)
* [[Ramón María del Valle-Inclán]] (1866–1936)

'''American'''
* [[Clark Ashton Smith]] (1893–1961)
* [[David Park Barnitz]] (1878–1901)
* [[H. P. Lovecraft]] (1890–1937)
* [[Robert W. Chambers]] (1865–1933)
* [[Vincent O'Sullivan (American writer)|Vincent O'Sullivan]] (1868–1940)
* [[Edgar Saltus]] (1855–1921)
* [[Francis Saltus Saltus]] (1849–1889)

'''Czech'''
* [[Jiří Karásek ze Lvovic]] (1871–1851)
* [[Karel Hlaváček]] (1874–1898)
* [[Arthur Breisky]] (1885–1910)

'''Others'''
* [[Mateiu Caragiale]] (1885–1936), Romanian
* [[Viktors Eglītis]] (1877–1945), Latvian
* [[Vojislav Ilić]] (1860–1894), Serbian
* [[Hjalmar Söderberg]] (1869–1941), Swedish
* [[Eric Stenbock]] (1860–1895), Swedish
* [[José Juan Tablada]] (1871–1945), Mexican
* [[Ivan Cankar]] (1876–1918), Slovenian
* [[Oton Župančič]] (1878–1949), Slovenian
* [[Oscar A. H. Schmitz]] (1873–1931), German
{{Div col end}}

===Visual artists===
{{Div col|colwidth=20em}}
'''Austrian-German'''
* [[Franz von Bayros]] (1866–1924)
* [[Max Klinger]] (1857–1920)
* [[Gustav Klimt]] (1862–1918)
* [[Franz Stuck]] (1863–1928)

'''Belgian'''
* [[Jan Frans De Boever]] (1872–1949)
* [[Jean Delville]] (1867–1953)
* [[Félicien Rops]] (1833–1898)
* [[Fernand Khnopff]] (1858–1921)

'''British'''
* [[Aubrey Beardsley]] (1872–1898)
* [[Charles Ricketts]] (1866–1931)

'''French'''
* [[Joseph Apoux]] (1846–1910)
* [[Gustave Moreau]] (1826–1898)
* [[Odilon Redon]] (1840–1916)
* [[Georges Rochegrosse]] (1859–1938)
* [[Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec]] (1864–1901)

'''Other'''
* [[Carel de Nerée tot Babberich]] (1880–1909), Dutch
* [[Ramón Casas]] (1866–1932), Spanish
{{Div col end}}

== See also ==
{{Sister project links}}
* [[Absinthe]]
* [[Belle Époque]]
* [[Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood]]
* {{Section link|Socialist realism|Soviet Union}} — Stalinist use of "decadent art" as career-destroying label and political accusation

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

==Bibliography==
* [[Mario Praz]], ''The Romantic Agony'', 1930 {{ISBN|0-19-281061-8}}
* [[Philippe Jullian]], ''Esthétes et Magiciens'', 1969; ''Dreamers of Decadence'', 1971.
* [[Richard Gilman]], ''Decadence: The Strange Life of an Epithet'', 1979.
* [[David Weir (academic)|David Weir]], "Decadence and the Making of Modernism" (1995). {{ISBN|978-0-87023-991-5}}
* [[Brian Stableford]] "Decadence and Symbolism: A showcase Anthology" (2018). {{ISBN|978-1-943813-58-2}}
[[George Sylvester Viereck]]
* (1906) ''A Game at Love, and Other Plays''. New York: Brentano's.
* (1907) ''[[Wikisource:The House of the Vampire|The House of the Vampire]]''. New York: Moffat, Yard & Company. 
* (1907) ''Nineveh and Other Poems''. New York: Moffat, Yard & Company.
* (1910) ''Confessions of a Barbarian''. New York: Moffat, Yard & Company.
* (1912) ''The Candle and the Flame''. New York: Moffat, Yard & Company.
* (1916) ''Songs of Armageddon & Other Poems''. New York: Mitchell Kennerley.
* (1919) ''Roosevelt: A Study in Ambivalence''. New York: Jackson Press, Inc.
* (1923) ''Rejuvenation: How Steinach Makes People Young''. New York: Thomas Seltzer [as George F. Corners].
* (1924) ''The Three Sphinxes and Other Poems''. Girard, Kansas: Haldeman-Julius Company. 
* (1928) ''My First Two Thousand Years: The Autobiography of the Wandering Jew''. New York: The Macaulay Company [with [[Paul Eldridge]]]. 
* (1930) ''Glimpses of the Great''. New York: The Macaulay Company.
* (1930) ''Salome: The Wandering Jewess. My First 2,000 Years of Love''. New York, H. Liveright.
* (1930) ''Spreading Germs of Hate''. New York: H. Liveright [with a foreword by Colonel Edward M. House].
* (1931) ''My Flesh and Blood. A Lyric Autobiography, with Indiscreet Annotations''. New York: H. Liveright.
* (1932) ''The Invincible Adam''. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. [with [[Paul Eldridge]]]. 
* (1932) ''Strangest Friendship: Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House''. New York: H. Liveright.
* (1937) ''The Kaiser on Trial''. New York: The Greystone Press.
* (1938) ''Before America Decides. Foresight in Foreign Affairs''. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press [with Frank P. Davidson].
* (1941) ''The Seven Against Man''. Flanders Hall.
* (1949) ''All Things Human''. New York: Sheridan House [as Stuart Benton].
* (1952) ''Men into Beasts''. Fawcett Publication.
* (1952) ''Gloria: A Novel''. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co.
* (1953) ''The Nude in the Mirror''. New York: Woodford Press.
{{Schools of poetry}}
{{Western art movements}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:19th century in art]]
[[Category:19th-century literature]]
[[Category:Art movements]]
[[Category:Decadent literature]]
[[Category:Literary movements]]
[[Category:Modern art]]
[[Category:Symbolism (arts)]]