Before Queer Theory

Before Queer Theory PDF Author: Dustin Friedman
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 1421431475
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
A reimagining of how the aesthetic movement of the Victorian era ushered in modern queer theory. Late Victorian aesthetes were dedicated to the belief that an artwork's value derived solely from its beauty, rather than any moral or utilitarian purpose. Works by these queer artists have rarely been taken seriously as contributions to the theories of sexuality or aesthetics. But in Before Queer Theory, Dustin Friedman argues that aestheticism deploys its "art for art's sake" rhetoric to establish a nascent sense of sexual identity and community. Friedman makes the case for a claim rarely articulated in either Victorian or modern culture: that intellectually, creatively, and ethically, being queer can be an advantage not in spite but because of social hostility toward nonnormative desires. Showing how aesthetes—among them Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde, Vernon Lee, and Michael Field—harnessed the force that Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel called "the negative," Friedman reveals how becoming self-aware of one's sexuality through art can be both liberating and affirming of humanity's capacity for subjective autonomy. Challenging one of the central precepts of modern queer theory—the notion that the heroic subject of Enlightenment thought is merely an effect of discourse and power—Friedman develops a new framework for understanding the relationship between desire and self-determination. He also articulates an innovative, queer notion of subjective autonomy that encourages reflecting critically on one's historical moment and envisioning new modes of seeing, thinking, and living that expand the boundaries of social and intellectual structures. Before Queer Theory is an audacious reimagining that will appeal to scholars with interests in Victorian studies, queer theory, gender and sexuality studies, and art history.

Before Queer Theory

Before Queer Theory PDF Author: Dustin Friedman
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 1421431475
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Get Book Here

Book Description
A reimagining of how the aesthetic movement of the Victorian era ushered in modern queer theory. Late Victorian aesthetes were dedicated to the belief that an artwork's value derived solely from its beauty, rather than any moral or utilitarian purpose. Works by these queer artists have rarely been taken seriously as contributions to the theories of sexuality or aesthetics. But in Before Queer Theory, Dustin Friedman argues that aestheticism deploys its "art for art's sake" rhetoric to establish a nascent sense of sexual identity and community. Friedman makes the case for a claim rarely articulated in either Victorian or modern culture: that intellectually, creatively, and ethically, being queer can be an advantage not in spite but because of social hostility toward nonnormative desires. Showing how aesthetes—among them Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde, Vernon Lee, and Michael Field—harnessed the force that Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel called "the negative," Friedman reveals how becoming self-aware of one's sexuality through art can be both liberating and affirming of humanity's capacity for subjective autonomy. Challenging one of the central precepts of modern queer theory—the notion that the heroic subject of Enlightenment thought is merely an effect of discourse and power—Friedman develops a new framework for understanding the relationship between desire and self-determination. He also articulates an innovative, queer notion of subjective autonomy that encourages reflecting critically on one's historical moment and envisioning new modes of seeing, thinking, and living that expand the boundaries of social and intellectual structures. Before Queer Theory is an audacious reimagining that will appeal to scholars with interests in Victorian studies, queer theory, gender and sexuality studies, and art history.

Aestheticism, Evil, Homosexuality, and Hannibal

Aestheticism, Evil, Homosexuality, and Hannibal PDF Author: Geoff Klock
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498548490
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 183

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Book Description
In late 19th century England, Oscar Wilde popularized aestheticism, also known as art-for-art’s-sake – the idea that art, that beauty, should not be a vehicle for morality or truth, but an end in-and-of-itself. Rothko and Jackson Pollock enthroned the idea, creating paintings that are barely graded panels of color or wild splashes. Today, pop culture is aestheticism’s true heir, from the perfect charismatic emptiness of Ocean’s Eleven to the hyper-choreographed essentially balletic movements in the best martial arts movies. But aestheticism has a dark core, one that Social Justice Activists are now gathering to combat, revealing the damaging ideology reflected in or concealed by our most beloved pop culture icons. Taking Bryan Fuller’s television version of Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter as its main text – and taking Žižek-style illustrative detours into Malcolm in the Middle, Dark Knight Rises, Harry Potter, Interview with a Vampire, Dexter and more – this book marshals Walter Pater, Camille Paglia, Nietzsche, the Marquis de Sade, Kant and Plato, as well as Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, Baudelaire, Beckett, Wallace Stevens and David Mamet to argue that Fuller’s show is a deceptively brilliant advance of aestheticism, both in form and content – one that investigates how deeply art-for-art’s-sake, and those of us who consciously or unconsciously worship at its teat, are necessarily entwined with evil.

Aestheticism

Aestheticism PDF Author: R. V. Johnson
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1315314711
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 107

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Book Description
First published in 1969, this work explores aestheticism and its relationship with literature. After defining the term and examining the unique qualities of ‘the Aesthetes’, the book provides an overview of the literary movement from its emergence to its apotheosis in the 1890s. This book will be of particular interest to those studying 19th Century literature.

The New Aestheticism

The New Aestheticism PDF Author: John J. Joughin
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719061394
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
This text introduces the notion of a new aestheticism - 'new' insofar as it identifies a turn taken by some contemporary thinkers towards the idea that focussing on the aesthetic impact of a work of art or literature has the potential to open different ways of thinking about identity, politics and culture.

Women and British Aestheticism

Women and British Aestheticism PDF Author: Talia Schaffer
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813918921
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
A collection of essays on the women novelists, poets, fiction writers, essayists and critics who played a central and long-forgotten role in the history of aestheticism. It demonstrates how aestheticism offered people a set of concepts and a vocabulary for addressing issues such as gender.

Aestheticism

Aestheticism PDF Author: R. V. Johnson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315314703
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 105

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Book Description
First published in 1969, this work explores aestheticism and its relationship with literature. After defining the term and examining the unique qualities of ‘the Aesthetes’, the book provides an overview of the literary movement from its emergence to its apotheosis in the 1890s. This book will be of particular interest to those studying 19th Century literature.

Aestheticism and Deconstruction

Aestheticism and Deconstruction PDF Author: Jonathan Loesberg
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400862213
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
Considered an exemplar of "Art-for-Art's Sake" in Victorian art and literature, Walter Pater (1839-1894) was co-opted as a standard bearer for the cult of hedonism by Oscar Wilde, and this version of aestheticism has since been used to attack deconstruction. Here Jonathan Loesberg boldly uses Pater's important work on society and culture, Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1873), to argue that the habitual dismissal of deconstruction as "aestheticist" fails to recognize the genuine philosophic point and political engagement within aestheticism. Reading Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man in light of Pater's Renaissance, Loesberg begins by accepting the charge that deconstruction is "aestheticist." He goes on to show, however, that aestheticism and modern deconstruction both produce philosophical knowledge and political effect through persistent self-questioning or "self-resistance" and in the internal critique and destabilization of hegemonic truths. Throughout Loesberg reinterprets Pater and reexamines the contributions of deconstruction in relation to the apparent theoretical shift away from deconstruction and toward new historicism. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

After the Pre-Raphaelites

After the Pre-Raphaelites PDF Author: Elizabeth Prettejohn
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719054068
Category : Aesthetic movement (Art)
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
What happened in Victorian painting and sculpture after the pre-Raphaelites? Aestheticism has been called the next avant-garde movement but attention has centred on literary figures such as Algernon Charles Swinburn, Walter Peter and Oscar Wilde. This volume overviews parallel trends in the visual arts, including the work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, James McNeil Whistler, Edward Burne-Jones, Simeon Solomon and Albert Moore among others.

Aestheticism

Aestheticism PDF Author: Leon Chai
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231072243
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description


Aestheticism and Sexual Parody 1840-1940

Aestheticism and Sexual Parody 1840-1940 PDF Author: Dennis Denisoff
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521024891
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
This original and provocative 2001 study discusses the work of a number of authors in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in order to argue that mainstream society was enabled to accept the non-normative sexuality of the Aesthetic Movement chiefly through parody and self-parody. Highlighting Victorian popular culture, Aestheticism and Sexual Parody adds an important dimension to the theorisations of parody as a combative strategy by which sexually marginalized groups undermine the status quo. From W. S. Gilbert's drama and Vernon Lee and Christopher Isherwood's prose to George du Maurier's cartoons and Max Beerbohm's caricatures, Dennis Denisoff explores the parodies' interactions with the personae and texts of canonical authors such as Alfred Tennyson, Walter Pater, Algernon Swinburne, and Oscar Wilde. In doing so, he considers the impact that these interactions had on modern ideas of gender, sexuality, taste and politics.