The study of decadent literature reveals a complicated relationship between science, nature, and decadence. Many writers of the fin de siècle appeared to reject the natural world in favour of an 'artificial paradise' of their own making (Symons, 1893: p. 866). Arthur Symons, for example, defended the artificiality of decadence by asking, '[I]s there any "reason in nature" why we should write exclusively about the natural blush if the delicately acquired blush of rouge has any attraction for us?' (Symons, 1896: p. xiv). Yet, decadence itself is an organic metaphor, extending the natural processes of decline and decay to societies and the arts. Rather than a

Scenes of mesmerism and hypnotism in Gothic novels are commonly read as symbolic of sexual assault that reinforce traditional hierarchies of gendered power. In contrast, Bram Stoker rejects the trope of the helpless woman controlled by the all-powerful mesmerist in his depiction of Mina Harker's psychic connection to Dracula. Rather, he presents this connection as a means by which Mina can regain power after a traumatic assault, and does so by employing nineteenth-century feminist rhetoric which presented telepathy as a powerful extension of women's natural faculty for sympathy. The word 'sympathy' appears an unusual number of times in Dracula, compared to other Gothic or invasion fiction of the period. In his use of this word, Stoker engages with a number of nineteenth-century discourses, including moral philosophy, feminism, and mesmerism. Each of these branches of thought viewed sympathy as an inherently female virtue. In the novel, feminine sympathy is presented as the means by which the vampire can be fought and destroyed without compromising the humanity of those that fight. Thus, a consideration of the depiction of sympathy in Dracula suggests that Stoker was far more receptive to New Women and the feminist movement of the 1890s than is often allowed.

No abstract

Walter Pater’s engagement with nineteenth-century science has long been acknowledged, but critics have often characterized it in negative terms. This essay demonstrates that while Pater viewed Darwinian evolutionary theory negatively, insisting that it ‘stealthily withdraws the apparently solid earth itself from beneath one’s feet’ (Plato and Platonism, 1893), he embraced non-Darwinian theories of development. Peter J. Bowler has argued that an ‘eclipse of Darwinism’ or ‘non-Darwinian revolution’ took place in the second half of the nineteenth century, in which there was widespread public acceptance of the transmutation of species but not of the mechanism of adaptation and natural selection proposed by Darwin. Instead, as Bowler demonstrates, the prevailing understanding of evolution was of a non-Darwinian variety that emphasized form over function and design over random chance. I suggest that within these theories, such as the transcendental morphology propounded by Richard Owen, Pater finds a physical manifestation of his own particular philosophic blend of materialism and idealism. Viewed through this lens, many of Pater’s theories in art and philosophy become clearer, such as his belief in the ‘limitations’ of sculpture, discussed in Studies in the History of the Renaissance. Instead of viewing this as a denigration of sculpture as the art form furthest from the ideal, this essay demonstrates that Pater viewed sculpture in terms of the archetype of transcendental morphology: something both material and immaterial, simple and yet also ideal. Far from retreating from the spectre of contemporary science, as many critics suggest Pater does, Pater views science and the humanities as complementary disciplines, or homologues, sharing an underlying structure.

These lines begin an “Ode” which has permeated culture throughout the last hundred years. In 1912, Edward Elgar set it to music, as did Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály in 1964, to commemorate the 700th anniversary of Merton College, Oxford. In 1971, Gene Wilder spoke the opening lines as Willy Wonka in the film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. The words appear as epigraphs in an eclectic range of novels, including science fiction (Raymond E. Feist's Rage of a Demon King), fantasy (Elizabeth Haydon's The Assassin King), and historical fiction (E. V. Thompson's The Music Makers). They are quoted in an even more varied selection of books, including travelogues (Warren Rovetch's The Creaky Traveler in Ireland), textbooks (Arnold O. Allen's Probability, Statistics and Queueing Theory and R. S. Vassan and Sudha Seshadri's Textbook of Medicine), New Age self-help books (Raven Kaldera's Moon Phase Astrology: The Lunar Key to Your Destiny), autobiographies (Hilary Liftin's Candy and Me, a Love Story) and pedagogical guides (Lindsay Peer and Gavin Reid's Dyslexia – Successful Inclusion in the Secondary School).