Chris Baldick

Jane Desmarais

The tradition of Decadent writing in the 19th century remains a fascinating current in the evolution of modern literature. This new anthology brings together key texts from an international range of Decadent writings and writings about Decadence, many of them previously hard to find and some freshly translated from French, German, Italian, and - in a special section on ancient Roman antecedents - from Latin. The selection of texts and extracts, more fully annotated than in other sources, includes key Decadent manifestos and declarations of principle by Théophile Gautier, Walter Pater, and Oscar Wilde; poems by Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Symons, and many others; extracts from prose fictions by J.K. Huysmans, Aubrey Beardsley, and others; critical denunciations, with more discerning responses to the challenge of Decadence; parodies by Max Beerbohm, among others of Decadent attitudes and styles; and significant extracts from relevant ancient Roman writings by Petronius and Juvenal. The selection and explanatory notes combine to offer university students of literature and culture at all levels, along with teachers and lay enthusiasts, a rich resource for the understanding of Decadence as an elusive idea and as a literary tradition, in its complex evolution from the 1830s to the fin de siècle and beyond.

An Annotated Anthology

Decadence

David Weir

The Oxford Handbook of Decadence

Monsters under Glass explores our enduring fascination with hothouses and exotic blooms, from their rise in ancient times, through the Victorian vogue for plant collecting, to the vegetable monsters of twentieth-century science fiction and the movies, comics, and video games of the present day. Our interest in hothouses can be traced back to the Roman emperor Tiberius, but it was only in the early nineteenth century that a boom in exotic plant collecting and new glasshouse technologies stimulated the imagination of novelists, poets, and artists, and the hothouse entered the creative language in a highly charged way. Decadent writers in England and Europe—including Charles Baudelaire and Oscar Wilde—transformed the hothouse from a functional object to a powerful metaphor of metropolitan life, sexuality, and being replete with a dark underside of decay and death; and of consciousness itself, nurtured and dissected under glass. In a study as wide-ranging, vivid, and beautiful as our beloved exotic blooms themselves, Jane Desmarais charts the history and influence of these humid, tropical worlds and their creations, providing a steamy window onto our recent past.

A Cultural History of Hothouse Flowers from 1850 to the Present

Monsters under Glass

Lawrence Goldie

Psychotherapy and the Treatment of Cancer Patients addresses the need for a more integrated care of cancer patients within hospitals which pays attention to the mental anguish as well as physical distress caused by the disease. This book is based on Lawrence Goldie's own research with cancer patients, which has shown that psychoanalytic psychotherapy together with general medical care can significantly help dying patients cope with the pain and suffering associated with the disease. Drawing on this research, the book advocates a more holistic approach to the cancer patient and suggests ways in which more expert attention might be provided through awareness, training and resources. The book describes the innovative approach of applying the psychoanalytic psychotherapeutic approach within the hospital context to help individuals cope with cancer. As well as an overview of cancer and the therapeutic approach, topics covered include: * the impact of cancer on hospital relationships * cancer in different areas of the body and mind * ‘mind-bending pain’ * dread and trauma - on being told the truth * psychoanalytic psychotherapy in the NHS 'general' hospital * examining group processes in hospital. Psychotherapy and the Treatment of Cancer Patients challenges the existing orthodoxies about palliative care and points to ways in which the principles and methods of psychoanalysis can be applied successfully to cancer care within the hospital context.

Bearing Cancer in Mind

Psychotherapy and the Treatment of Cancer Patients

Decadence and Literature explains how the concept of decadence developed since Roman times into a major cultural trope with broad explanatory power. No longer just a term of opprobrium for mannered art or immoral behaviour, decadence today describes complex cultural and social responses to modernity in all its forms. From the Roman emperor's indulgence in luxurious excess as both personal vice and political control, to the Enlightenment libertine's rational pursuit of hedonism, to the nineteenth-century dandy's simultaneous delight and distaste with modern urban life, decadence has emerged as a way of taking cultural stock of major social changes. These changes include the role of women in forms of artistic expression and social participation formerly reserved for men, as well as the increasing acceptance of LGBTQ+ relationships, a development with a direct relationship to decadence. Today, decadence seems more important than ever to an informed understanding of contemporary anxieties and uncertainties.

Jane Desmarais

Books

Your next favorite book is out there