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Forgetting London: Paris, Cultural Cartography, and Late Victorian Decadence

Forgetting London: Paris, Cultural Cartography, and Late Victorian Decadence The study of Decadence recently has attempted to counteract the perceived apoliticism of the movement by examining the spread of Decadent communities in opposition to larger ones of the nation state. This article seeks to both complicate and extend that discussion by turning to the ways in which the novelist George Moore and the poet and critic Arthur Symons transformed London through the importation of Parisian impressionism. Examining naturalism and impressionism, this article argues that London “disappears” as a symbol of the nation state and is transformed into the abstracted space of modern urbanity. Keywords: cosmpolitanism, impressionism, naturalism, Moore, Symons, urban literature n Confessions of a Young Man George Moore stated: “To write about London I should have to begin by forgetting Paris.” In what follows I would like to interrogate this premise that immersion in a foreign culture can have a drastic effect on the subjective experience of place. For decadent and aestheticist writers such as Moore and Arthur Symons Continental travel and cultural exchange represented a paradigmatic shift in their experience and understanding of themselves as British subjects.1 This shift is clearly evident in the antagonistic relationship between London and Paris that exists for both writers. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journeys Berghahn Books

Forgetting London: Paris, Cultural Cartography, and Late Victorian Decadence

Murray, Alex
Journeys , Volume 11 (2) – Dec 1, 2010
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Publisher
Berghahn Books
Copyright
© 2022 Berghahn Books
ISSN
1465-2609
eISSN
1752-2358
DOI
10.3167/jys.2010.110202
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The study of Decadence recently has attempted to counteract the perceived apoliticism of the movement by examining the spread of Decadent communities in opposition to larger ones of the nation state. This article seeks to both complicate and extend that discussion by turning to the ways in which the novelist George Moore and the poet and critic Arthur Symons transformed London through the importation of Parisian impressionism. Examining naturalism and impressionism, this article argues that London “disappears” as a symbol of the nation state and is transformed into the abstracted space of modern urbanity. Keywords: cosmpolitanism, impressionism, naturalism, Moore, Symons, urban literature n Confessions of a Young Man George Moore stated: “To write about London I should have to begin by forgetting Paris.” In what follows I would like to interrogate this premise that immersion in a foreign culture can have a drastic effect on the subjective experience of place. For decadent and aestheticist writers such as Moore and Arthur Symons Continental travel and cultural exchange represented a paradigmatic shift in their experience and understanding of themselves as British subjects.1 This shift is clearly evident in the antagonistic relationship between London and Paris that exists for both writers.

Journal

Journeys – Berghahn Books

Published: Dec 1, 2010

Keywords: COSMPOLITANISM; IMPRESSIONISM; NATURALISM; MOORE; SYMONS; URBAN LITERATURE

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