Dreamers of Decadence by Philippe Jullian

The compilation supports the fourteen elements which are used to help develop characters, settings, and themes. This study presents a glossary of words compiled by means of an examination of Beardsley's Under the Hill, Charles Baudelaire's Twenty Prose Poem~ and Flowers of Evil, Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and SalomI, Max Beerbohm's 'Pervasion of Rouge' and 'Dandies and Dandies,' Walt Whitman's Children of Adam and Calamus, and Bram Stoker's Dracula. These words can be grouped under fourteen elements which provide a concise description of Decadent literature: Aristocracy/Luxury, Beauty, Death, Divine Order of Things, Dreams, Evil, Fascination with Colors, Harlots, Illness, Pain, Pleasure, Sexual Deviation, The Soul, and Superstition. Using Beckson's definition of Decadence and that of Philippe Jullian in his Dreamers of Decadence, one can select words from works by Decadents that help to verify those definitions.

This evidence demonstrates that Faulkner was aware of his Decadent predecessors. He specifically mentions both their names. In Absalom, Absalom!, he describes a scene as he believes Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley might portray it. He, like the Decadents, presents studies of a society in decay. One of the major modern American novelists is William Faulkner. Karl Beckson, in the preface to his anthology Aesthetes and Decadents of the 1890's, mentions that modern critics need to take a new look at the Decadent Movement if they wish fully to understand the roots of modern literature. This study, by using vocabulary comparison, demonstrates that William Faulkner was influenced by the fin de siecle Decadents in writing three of his novels: Absalom, Absalom!, Sanctuary, and The Sound and the Fury.

Dreamers of Decadence by Philippe Jullian