Posted by zeugma on July 3, 2007, at 11:17:15
In reply to Did Oscar Wilde give decadence a good name? (nm) » zeugma, posted by Sigismund on July 3, 2007, at 1:33:33
The word 'decadence' is pejorative, so the concept of 'good decadence' is somewhat oxymoronic.
I was driven to this oxymoron by the thought of a Presidential commutation applied to the (presumably- I personally wouldn't use the word) "decadent" Paris (really we should be talking about the city here, not the person).
When Wilde was apprehended on charges of gross decadence, the only people who would sign petitions for clemency were themselves notorious decadents:"In The Importance of Being Oscar (1981), Mark Nicholls says that, when Wilde was imprisoned, George Bernard Shaw drafted a petition for his release. Soon afterwards Shaw told Willie Wilde, Oscar’s brother, “that nobody would sign it except himself and Stewart Headlam, and that as they were both notorious frondeurs their signatures would do more harm than good.”
("The Rev. Stewart Headlam and Friends," by Nigel Sinnott.)
Shaw's name speaks for itself, but Headlam's name is now a footnote in an Ezra Pound poem:
Dowson found harlots cheaper than hotels;
Headlam for uplift; Image impartially imbued
With raptures for Bacchus, Terpsichore and the Church.
So spoke the author of "The Dorian Mood,"
M. Verog, out of step with the decade,
Detached from his contemporaries,
Neglected by the young,
Because of these reveries.
While "M.Verog" is one of the few characters that Pound sympathizes with, and Dowson, a great poet who died young, finds Headlam "uplifting," it is a safe bet that no one else did.
No one of unimpeachable character was willing to petition for clemency in Wilde's case.
I hope that answers your question.
.-z
poster:zeugma
thread:766777
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20070312/msgs/767377.html