Dowson’s Excesses and Poetics

Ernest Dowson (1867-1900), the archetypal Décadent poet, is still as relevant as ever, if not more so, in the 21st century. Did Dowson’s excesses merely consign him to being one of the also-rans of Victorian poetry? Or, rather, were his addiction and self-degradation not somehow related to the unfol...

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Main Author: Adrian Grafe
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée 2006-12-01
Series:Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/cve/12571
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author Adrian Grafe
author_facet Adrian Grafe
author_sort Adrian Grafe
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description Ernest Dowson (1867-1900), the archetypal Décadent poet, is still as relevant as ever, if not more so, in the 21st century. Did Dowson’s excesses merely consign him to being one of the also-rans of Victorian poetry? Or, rather, were his addiction and self-degradation not somehow related to the unfolding of his technically innovative poetics? The 1890s were nothing if not a time of excess. The fin de siècle poets, almost all of whom had tragically overshort lives (and not by accident, either), were excessively aesthetic, drunk, and wild(e)—and none more so than Dowson.
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series Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens
spelling doaj-art-1d684f58a7e44679a8fec304f14edfc62025-01-30T10:21:21ZengPresses Universitaires de la MéditerranéeCahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens0220-56102271-61492006-12-016310.4000/cve.12571Dowson’s Excesses and PoeticsAdrian GrafeErnest Dowson (1867-1900), the archetypal Décadent poet, is still as relevant as ever, if not more so, in the 21st century. Did Dowson’s excesses merely consign him to being one of the also-rans of Victorian poetry? Or, rather, were his addiction and self-degradation not somehow related to the unfolding of his technically innovative poetics? The 1890s were nothing if not a time of excess. The fin de siècle poets, almost all of whom had tragically overshort lives (and not by accident, either), were excessively aesthetic, drunk, and wild(e)—and none more so than Dowson.https://journals.openedition.org/cve/12571
spellingShingle Adrian Grafe
Dowson’s Excesses and Poetics
Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens
title Dowson’s Excesses and Poetics
title_full Dowson’s Excesses and Poetics
title_fullStr Dowson’s Excesses and Poetics
title_full_unstemmed Dowson’s Excesses and Poetics
title_short Dowson’s Excesses and Poetics
title_sort dowson s excesses and poetics
url https://journals.openedition.org/cve/12571
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