T-'^^rs- 1 <• -..^^ THE VICTORIAN FBMNE FATALE; MIRROR OP THE DECADENT TEMPERAl-lENT by JOSEPH CLAYBORNE NUNNALLY, B.A., M.A. A DISSERTATION IN ENGLISH Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Technological College in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved Accepted June, 1968 f 1 r-. •'3 No. " Cop- ^ ACKNOVJIEDGEMENT I am most grateful to Professor Roger L. Brooks for his direction of this dissertation and to the other members of my committee. Professors J. T. MoCullen and Floyd Eugene Eddleman, for their help, encouragement, and endless patience. ii I CONTENTS FOREWORD iii I. HOME AND HEARTH 1 II. PRE-RAPHAELITE LITERATURE • . 16 III. AESTHETIC LITERATURE 45 IV. CONCLUSION 75 V. A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 75 * * m Hi i^ FOREWORD The Art for Art's Sake Movement in Victorian England began about mid-century V7ith the Pre-Raphaelites and con­ tinued on through the fin de si'e^cle. -Essentially, it v;as comprised of artists in revolt against the moral, esthetic, and cultural standards of the time, V.'hlle the writers and critics under its aegis did indeed oppose practically every­ thing "Victorian"—from current fashions to the mass pro­ duction of goods—my interest in the movement is confined largely to its literature: namely, its re;3ection of the stereotyped Victorian heroine (which will be explored in Chapter I) and the subsequent creation of a new, rather bizarre, feminine type. This new heroine—or anti-heroine—became the sub­ ject of countless Decadent productions, in literature as well as art. (It should be pointed out, here that in the following study I use the term "Decadent" in a generic sense. It applies to all artists of the Art for Art's Sake MoveiL^nt whose temperaments and works evince that love of the height­ ened sensory experience which Pater, VJilde, Symons,and others elevated to philosophical status.) Merciless, perverse, in­ capable of love, she will be designated here by a variety of titles: the femme fatale, la volupte. the demon-lover, and other synonyms. iv I lly purpose, then, is threefold: first, to define and isolate the f6!--^e fatr.'^.e image (see pp. 18 ff. for the criteria by ;-:hich she is identified) ; second, to trace this motif through a variety of works and artists; and, third, to show the manner in which the femme fatale reflects the Decadent consciousness. Finally, it is perhaps worth mentioning that I will draw the majority of my illustrations of the fe^.^ia fatale motif from works that were widely read by the Victorian pub­ lic. Also, these examples will be selected from writers who, by representing as they do all divisions of the Art for Art's Sake Movement, testify not only to the popularity of the demon-lover concept, but emphasize as well how remarkably identical in nature these various presentations were. I will by no means cite all appropriate works any particular poet affords, for to do so would be to go on" interminably. By the sane token, I will exclude many of the less familiar writers altogether. I believe, however, sufficient evidence will be given to justify her importance as a mirror of the Decadent mood. 1 CHAPTER I HOME AND HEARTH The English proletariat .is becoming more and more bourgeois, so that-this most bourgeois of all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat as well as a bour­ geoisie, —Priedrich Engels In order to appreciate fully the degree of original­ ity, not to say rebelliousness, of the various artistic and literary "movements"—Pre-Raphaelitism, Aestheticism, Symbo­ lism, or Decadence—which graced the last half of nineteenth- century England's belles-lettres, it seems to me essential to indicate, however briefly, the prevailing moral and aes­ thetic climate of the times: to describe, in other words, the Victorian norm against which these reactionary movements set themselves. For we in this century are accustomed to bow automatically to the right of the artist to express him­ self as he sees fit, even if the finished product strikes us personally as being somewhat vulgar or offensive. By and large, our society shuns rigidity and intransigence, espe­ cially in matters of what is art or what is not art, or what the artist should be allowed to do or what should be forbid­ den to him. To be offended in this day and time by any "work of art" Is to some extent, however small, proof of a lack of Kv sophistication. Not so one hundred years ago. And it is necessary to understand what the whole Art for Art's Sake Movement in England was up against before much of its ef­ forts can be justly evaluated. By 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition, England was indisputably the foremost manufacturing power in the world. English goods were carried on English ships to every part of the world. And barring occasional financial reces­ sions and "panics"—such as those which occurred in 18^8 and again in 1886—the nation's wealth and industrial might grew steadily throughout the century. Indeed, had Victoria been blessed with Coolidge's gift of phrase, she could very well have boasted throughout her long reign that "the business of Great Britain is business." The Industrial Revolution, which was in full swing by the year of the Exhibition, brought hitherto unprecedented luxuries to the country. Along with its triumphs, however, the Revolution ushered-in a new so­ ciety. No longer was the economy agrarian; it was now capi­ talistic. No longer was the center of wealth the pastoral estate; it was the factory and the mill. Consequently, no longer was the seat of real power (i.e., economic power) the landed aristocracy or the nobility. It fell instead to the city merchant and the entrepreneur. The day of the well- bred Gentleman was past; the day of the self-made business­ man—the Bounderbies and the Veneerings—was here: rv^-^siMWf''•'** 1 Everything about the Veneerings was spick and span new. All their furniture was new, all their friends were new, all their servants were new, their plate was new, their carriage was new, their harness was new, their horses were new, their pictures were new, they themselves were new. .^ By mid-century, Victorian England was pre-eminently a nation of the middle classes—"of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat as well as a bourgeoisie." To be sure, thousands were subjected to a bone-grinding poverty deplor­ able to read about, but, by and large, the English citizenry gained a new affluence as the country became increasingly 2 industrialized. To say that the Victorian Era was dominated by the middle class is not automatically to condemn. Indeed, it was largely the virtues of the middle class—efficiency, stabil­ ity, sober practicality, and industry—which made nineteenth- century England the wealthiest country in Europe. But, by 1 Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend. Everyman's Library Edition (London, 1907), P. 5. Though Victorian laisser-faire capitalism was any­ thing but benevolent, the century saw sufficient salaries for even the lowest laborers. In 1840, for example, to sustain himself, his wife, and children, the laborer required about fourteen shillings a week. His average salary: eight shil­ lings. By 1875, the necessities of life could still be ob­ tained for approximately fifteen shillings. For the first time, the unskilled worker could expect to earn this much each week. Theoretically, then, even the most run-of-the- mill workman could support himself and his dependents without having to resort'to charity, begging, or hiring-out the mem­ bers of his family to supplement his income. See, Robert L. Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers (New York, 1953), p. 173. the same token (and more important to this paper), it was largely the failings of the bourgeoisie—sentimentality, narrow-mindedness, conformity, and garishness—which, es­ pecially during the latter half of the. century, alienated so many of the artists, intellectuals, and literati from the public. It is not surprising that the two most cherished ideals of the Victorian masses were the sanctity of the home and the purity of women, especially English women. Domes­ ticity was (at least in theory) the fountain of man's happi­ ness and the foundation of England's greatness. The eighteenth-century gentleman had his club—in which he found masculine camaraderie, unlimited supplies of ale, and an atmosphere so congenial to his corrupt nature that quite often he ignored his home to the extent of receiving at the club both his visitors and his correspondence. But the nineteenth-century man of substance saw things in a different light. The respectable husband was not to be found always loitering at his favorite club; nor, if he could afford it, would he be content with "living above the shop." Instead, he built a house in some "fashionable" section of the city, and it was here that he repaired at the end of a busy (but profitable) day, and here he could be found, surrounded by wife and children. Ruskin, who was so often critical of his time and its tastes, was in full accord with the Victorian tendency to apotheosize the Home: ... I cannot but think it an evil sign of a people when their houses are built to last for one generation only. There is a sanctity in a good man's house which cannot be renewed in every tenement that rises on its ruins; and I believe that good men would generally feel this; and that having spent their lives happily and honorably, they would be grieved, at the close of them, to think that the place of their earthly abode, x^hich had seen, and seemed almost to sympathize in, all their honor, all their gladness, or their suffering—that this, with all the record it bore of them, and of all material things they had loved and ruled over, and set the stamp of themselves upon—was to be swept away, as soon as there was room made for them in the grave; that no re­ spect was to be shown to it, no affection felt for it, no good to be draiTn from it by their children; that though there was a monument in the church, there was no warm monument in the hearth and house to them; that all that they ever treasured was despised, and the places that had sheltered and comforted them were dragged doivn to the dust.