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Repression and Morality in Henry James, Decadence in Oscar Wilde

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Repression and Morality in Henry James, Decadence in Oscar Wilde Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem Bölcsészettudományi Kar DOKTORI DISSZERTÁCIÓ Lukács Zsuzsanna “Decadence and Repression in Henry James and Oscar Wilde” Irodalomtudományi Doktori Iskola (ITDI) Vezetője: Dr. Kállay Géza, egyetemi tanár Program: Modern angol és amerikai irodalom Program vezetője: Dr. Péter Ágnes CSc., professor emeritus A bizottság elnöke: Dr. Péter Ágnes CSc., professor emeritus Hivatalosan felkért bírálók: Dr. Sarbu Aladár DSc., professor emeritus Dr. Pellérdi Márta PhD, egyetemi docens A bizottság további tagjai: Dr. Czigányik Zsolt PhD, egyetemi tanársegéd, a bizottság titkára Dr. Juhász Tamás PhD, egyetemi adjunktus Dr. Farkas Ákos, Dr. Friedrich Judit, Dr. Péteri Éva (póttagok) Témavezető: Dr. Kékesi Kun Árpád, egyetemi docens Budapest, 2012. november 23 Table of Contents Introduction: Moral Tradition vs. Subversion pg. 1 1. Late- Victorianism: Social Background 22 I. Social Background 23 II. Juvenile Literature and Muscular Christianity 26 III. Moral Hygiene and Clitoridectomy 29 IV. Surveillance of the Subculture: trials and the niches of hedonism 40 V. On Dandyism 57 VI. On Decadence 68 2. Textual Interpretation of Oscar Wilde’s Works 86 I. Wilde’s Effete and Decadent Characters in The Picture of Dorian Gray 87 II. Homoeroticism and Fetishism in Poems and Salomé 117 3. Textual Interpretation of Henry James’s Works 131 I. Repression and Sublimation 132 II. Carlyle and Victorian Asceticism 140 III. Repression and Homoeroticism in Roderick Hudson 152 IV. Homoeroticism and Fetishism in James’s Short Fiction 196 V. Sensuality and Art in Roderick Hudson and The Picture of Dorian Gray 209 4. Conclusion 217 5. Bibliography 224 6. Index 231 7. Appendix 233 Decadence and Repression in Henry James and Oscar Wilde Introduction Moral Tradition vs. Subversion Negative preconceptions and stereotypes automatically correlate Victorianism exclusively with Puritanism, prudery and the trials of Oscar Wilde, thereby reducing and simplifying the age, even though it was multifaceted, with a flourishing subculture including the Decadent movement, the molly- houses (taverns where homosexual practices occurred) and the effete dandies. With regard to Victorian literary figures, Oscar Wilde and Henry James are mainly contrasted in popular views, with critics highlighting their opposing personalities and different approaches to aestheticism. Shelley Salamensky details how “Henry James’s first conversations with Oscar Wilde, the premier talker of his time, were less than successful” (275), noting that James was outraged by Wilde’s flamboyancy (275). Moreover, Richard Ellmann remarks that James considered “`Hosscar`” Wilde a “fatuous fool,” and a “tenth rate cad” (178-9). Joseph Bristow also falls into the category of those scholars who ascertain that James “showed no hesitation in expressing his distaste” for Wilde (Bristow, Review 148). James condescendingly characterized Wilde as “´one of those Irish adventurers who had something of the Roman character-able but false`” (Bristow, Review 148). Furthermore, in The Tragic Muse, as Salamensky notes (275), James recalls his negative encounter with Wilde in Washington, D.C in 1882. [O]ur paths in life are so different," [Gabriel Nash, representing Wilde, is talking to the protagonist Nick Dormer]. “Different, yes, but not so different as that. Don't we both live in London, after all, and in the nineteenth century?" “Ah my dear Dormer, excuse me: I don't live in the nineteenth century. Jamais de la vie!" the gentleman declared. (29) Overall, scholars agree that James was flabbergasted by the guises that Wilde inhabited. Wilde’s alien and conspicuously effete exterior aroused anger and contempt on James’s part. However, the recent work of Michèle Mendelssohn, entitled Henry James, Oscar Wilde and Aesthetic Culture (2007) revokes the conventional perception that Henry James 2 and Oscar Wilde had opposing views on culture, but too many of Mendelssohn's claims are overstated. Bristow even notes that “in the end, one is left with the sense that Henry James, Oscar Wilde and Aesthetic Culture needed a more disciplined structure to make better sense of its discoveries” (Review 148). In addition to James’s animosity towards Wilde, which was personal in nature, some works, such as Hugh Stevens’ Henry James and Sexuality (1998) and Wendy Graham’s Henry James’s Thwarted Love (1999) have also directed attention to James’s characters’ repressed homosexuality, despite their Puritan principles. These works’ reassessment of Henry James and his time have great value. Graham’s Henry James's Thwarted Love contextualizes James's treatment of homosexual repression and sublimation. However, there is a need to present some Jamesian texts from a different angle, an angle which sheds light on how some of James’s works share common characteristics with the decadent works of the late-Victorian era, specifically Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray and Salomé. Even though Wilde and James are often construed as antithetical figures, and in spite of James’ vindication of (homo)sexual repression and morality and his conviction that Wilde was an “unclean beast” (Ellmann 178), works like Roderick Hudson (1878), “The Author of Beltraffio” (1884), “The Aspern Papers” (1888), and “The Lesson of the Master” (1892) exhibit surprising similarities with Wilde’s so-called “degenerate” decadent novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), “The Portrait of Mr. W.H” (1889) and his novella: Salomé (1894). It is noteworthy that despite James’s “supposed” prudery: his novels “provid[ing] a training manual in conservative ideology” (Reitz 3) and Wilde’s decadence, the above mentioned Jamesian works display decadent and (homo)erotic explicit subtexts that are very much comparable with Wilde´s Dorian Gray, “The Portrait of Mr. W.H,” and Salomé. In these works, the narrators paint an ambiguous picture of heterosexual love and courtship. Furthermore, these works both embrace decadence and avow same-sex passion, aestheticism, and fetishistic indulgences. Moreover, these writings depict homophobic and repressed homosexual male fictional characters, and contain gendered metaphors conflated with phallic imagery. On the one hand, Wilde and James both address themes 3 like homosocial affiliations (that are potentially homoerotic), homo-aesthetics, homoerotic gazes, and also the abomination of heterosexual courtships. On the other hand, both authors make concessions to New England/ late-Victorian morals and include the portrayal of moral exemplars. These themes are not only prevalent in Wilde’s and James’s novels, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Roderick Hudson, chosen for comparison, but even imbue the smaller works by Wilde and James, namely Salomé, “The Aspern Papers,” “The Lesson of the Master,” and “The Author of Beltraffio.” Basil, the painter in Wilde’s Dorian Gray and Rowland, an art connoisseur in James’s Roderick Hudson, are both “artistic middle-aged” men who are incapable of acting “aggressively or sexually” (Przybylowitcz 4). Both Rowland and Basil are products of the Victorian status quo, they are long suffering, with great aspirations, and a great aptitude for morality and self-negation. In addition, the decadent Roderick, the sculptor in Roderick Hudson and the dandiacal Dorian of Wilde’s Dorian Gray are also similar characters, who do not hesitate to indulge and suffer the consequences. Late-Victorian strict morality gave no leeway for such acts, it stigmatized degenerates, made them suffer, and pay their dues. Furthermore, the descriptions of Rowland’s admiration for Roderick, reflected in his devotion, loyalty and covert sexual attraction is very much comparable with Basil’s veneration of Dorian. Both Basil’s and Rowland’s secrets are repressed and are represented in art, as a result of their homosexual panic. Roderick Hudson and the Picture of Dorian Gray are thus repositories for a secret that is inadmissible. In both novels, homoerotic passion between the main characters goes unavowed. Basil is a man of principle like Rowland, who musters too much of late-Victorian ethics to give himself over to decadent desires like same-sex passion. Rowland also strives for a higher good, which is transcendental in nature and that satisfies the soul, not the body. Rowland has been molded by the moralist conservatism that dominated at the end of the nineteenth century, which abhorred decadent debauched acts and decreed (homo)sexual repression, purity and muscular Christianity. However, Wilde’s Dorian Gray and James’s Roderick Hudson also expose differences, both in textual artifice and ideology. One distinguishing factor between Wilde’s and 4 James’s novels is that Dorian Gray preaches sexual indulgence and embraces sensori- emotional values, which is communicated with alacrity via Dorian and Lord Henry, who are the focal points of Wilde’s novel. Antithetically, Roderick Hudson clearly rejects and preaches against the decadent dogmas of the late-Victorian counter-culture, an attitude which is communicated via Rowland Mallet, a bourgeois and self-controlled moralist, who is the archetype of virtue and late-Victorian conservative ethics in James’s novel. Rowland emphasizes a need for control and self-negation, unlike Dorian Gray. Rowland represses and sublimates his homoerotic passion, thereby conserving his sexual purity and morality. Obviously, Rowland is a moralist who holds and communicates that the function of morality and homosexual repression is to construct an ideal self that is desirable for an entire life. In contrast, Wilde’s novel endeavors
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