Table Of ContentArt and Life in Aestheticism
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Art and Life in Aestheticism
De-Humanizing and Re-Humanizing Art,
the Artist, and the Artistic Receptor
Edited by
Kelly Comfort
Introduction,selection and editorial matter © Kelly Comfort 2008
Individual chapters © contributors 2008
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2008 978-0-230-55116-9
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First published 2008 by
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Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments viii
Notes on Contributors x
Introduction: Reflections on the Relationship between Art and
Life in Aestheticism 1
Kelly Comfort
Part I Reevaluating the Seminal Works of
Nineteenth-Century Aestheticism 23
1. The Critic as Cosmopolite: Baudelaire’s International
Sensibility and the Transformation of
Viewer Subjectivity 25
Margueritte Murphy
2. Rossetti’s Aesthetically Saturated Readings:
Art’s De-Humanizing Power 42
Ileana Marin
3. Dickens À La Carte: Aesthetic Victualism and
the Invigoration of the Artist in Huysmans’s Against Nature 62
Paul Fox
Part II Reconsidering Turn-of-the-Century Aestheticism 77
4. Aesthetic Vampirism: Pater, Wilde, and the Concept of Irony 79
Andrew Eastham
5. The De-Humanization of the Artistic Receptor:
The George Circle’s Rejection of Paterian Aestheticism 96
Yvonne Ivory
6. Art for the Body’s Sake: Nietzsche’s Physical Aestheticism 109
Kael Ashbaugh
v
vi Contents
Part III Rereading the Aestheticist Strand of
Twentieth-Century Literature 123
7. From “God of the Creation” to “Hangman God”:
Joyce’s Reassessment of Aestheticism 125
Daniel M. Shea
8. The Aesthetic Anxiety: Avant-Garde Poetics,
Autonomous Aesthetics, and the Idea of Politics 139
Robert Archambeau
9. On the Cold War, American Aestheticism,
the Nabokov Problem—and Me 159
Gene H. Bell-Villada
Part IV Reassessing Aestheticism in
Twentieth-Century Theory 171
10. Beauty be Damned: Or Why Adorno Valorizes Carrion,
Stench, and Putrefaction 173
Charles B. Sumner
11. “This temptation to be undone …” Sontag, Barthes,
and the Uses of Style 189
Sarah Garland
12. Art for Heart’s Sake: The Aesthetic Existences of
Kierkegaard, Pater, and Iser 208
Ben De Bruyn
Index 232
Illustrations
Figure 2.1 Regina Cordium, 1866, oil on canvas, 23½(cid:2)19½ inches,
© Glasgow Art and Gallery Museum 49
Figure 2.2 Lady Lilith, 1866–8 (altered 1872–3), oil on canvas,
38(cid:2)33½ inches, © Delaware Art Museum, Samuel and
Mary R. Bancroft Memorial, 1935 53
Figure 2.3 Sibylla Palmifera, 1865–70, oil on canvas, 37(cid:2)32½ inches,
© Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool 55
Figure 2.4 Proserpina, 1881–2, oil on canvas, 31(cid:2)15½ inches,
© Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery,
presented by the Public Picture Gallery Fund, 1927 58
vii
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I want to thank my husband for his constant support
and encouragement, for knowing when to provide perspective, distance,
and distraction, and, most importantly, for the strength of his love.
I am grateful to my mom and dad, who provide the perfect balance of the
aesthetic and the human, of art and life. I also thank my brother for always
trying to keep me on track.
I wish to express my gratitude to Gail Finney, Liz Constable, and Ana Peluffo
for guiding me through my dissertation research on the relationship
between art for art’s sake and “art for capital’s sake” in European and Latin
American literature, and for assisting me at various stages throughout this
project. Their support is always with me.
I owe my introduction to aestheticism to an inspiring class I took with Eric
Downing during my undergraduate years at UNC. I appreciate his continued
guidance and support over the past decade.
The cover art for this volume, Stephen Alcorn’s The Portrait of Dorian Gray,
seems to me to so perfectly capture the de-humanizing and re-humanizing
extremes of aestheticism that I would like to acknowledge my debt to
Stephen for granting me permission to use his work. You can see more at
www.alcorngallery.com.
To the participants in the seminar I chaired on “Aestheticism: Dehumanizing
or Rehumanizing Art, the Artist, or the Artistic Receptor?” at the 2006 American
Comparative Literature Association’s Conference in Princeton, I wish to express
my appreciation for the diversity and richness of their ideas as well as the
provocative nature of our discussions. The inception of this volume’s topic
came in response to the 2006 ACLA Conference theme: “The Human and Its
Other.”
I am grateful for the permission to use Dante Gabriel Rosetti’s Regina
Cordium (© Glasgow Art and Gallery Museum), Lady Lilith (© Delaware
Art Museum, Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Memorial, 1935), Sibylla
Palmifera (© Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool), and
Proserpina (© Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery, presented by the Public
Picture Gallery Fund, 1927).
The comments and suggestions of Palgrave’s anonymous external reader
proved invaluable to the successful completion of this volume, and I am
viii
Acknowledgments ix
very grateful for his/her comprehensive feedback. I am also very apprecia-
tive of Palgrave’s editors for their diligent efforts and helpful guidance.
Finally, I wish to thank the contributors to this volume—for their insightful
approaches to the topic, for their shared and passionate interest in aestheti-
cism, and for their patience and diligence throughout the entire process.
