Art And Life In Aestheticism: De-humanizing And Re-humanizing Art, The Artist, And The Artistic Receptor

Art and Life in Aestheticism This page intentionally left blank 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 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2008 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-36204-2 ISBN 978-0-230-58349-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230583498 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 Contents List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgments viii Notes on Contributors x Introduction: Reflections on the Relationship between Art and Life in Aestheticism Kelly Comfort 1 Part I Reevaluating the Seminal Works of Nineteenth-Century Aestheticism 1. The Critic as Cosmopolite: Baudelaire’s International Sensibility and the Transformation of Viewer Subjectivity Margueritte Murphy 23 25 2. Rossetti’s Aesthetically Saturated Readings: Art’s De-Humanizing Power Ileana Marin 42 3. Dickens À La Carte: Aesthetic Victualism and the Invigoration of the Artist in Huysmans’s Against Nature Paul Fox 62 Part II Reconsidering Turn-of-the-Century Aestheticism 77 4. Aesthetic Vampirism: Pater, Wilde, and the Concept of Irony Andrew Eastham 79 5. The De-Humanization of the Artistic Receptor: The George Circle’s Rejection of Paterian Aestheticism Yvonne Ivory 6. Art for the Body’s Sake: Nietzsche’s Physical Aestheticism Kael Ashbaugh v 96 109 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 Daniel M. Shea 125 8. The Aesthetic Anxiety: Avant-Garde Poetics, Autonomous Aesthetics, and the Idea of Politics Robert Archambeau 139 9. On the Cold War, American Aestheticism, the Nabokov Problem—and Me Gene H. Bell-Villada 159 Part IV Reassessing Aestheticism in Twentieth-Century Theory 171 10. Beauty be Damned: Or Why A