Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Hello Joel, as a master of modern urban horror, I suspect you don't get down among the decadents very often, or you'd have remembered that Wilde, Beardsley, Dowson, John Gray (the original of Dorian), Lord Alfred Douglas, Lionel Johnson, Baron Corvo and lots of the "minor" decadents all converted to Roman Catholicism, while Machen was a High Church Anglo-Catholic. So decadence and religious orthodoxy were definitely bedfellows, strange as it may seem. Other decadents embraced occultism or the religions of the east, which were less orthodox but no less ritualised. Offhand the only (British) decadents I can think of who were non-religious are John Davidson, who was a Nietzschean, and the proto-decadent James Thomson, author of The City of Dreadful Night, who was a rationalist. Count Stenbock, of course, had multiple religions. However, the Decadents were also often fervent socialists or anarchists, as well as ritualists and Jacobites. It may seem an odd mixture to us now, but that's the way it was. It may be our loss if we can't now conceive holding those beliefs all together.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Well, of course whether Lovecraft was a racist or not has nothing to do with whether or not he was a good writer. Which sort of comes to the gist of the discussion: good writing does not depend on whether or not it is "spiritual" or "holy" - does not depend on being Right, or Left, Socialist or Fascist. That does not mean we should admire what we don't admire, but it does show a very square mindset to demand that every press or publication out there conform to some bland formula where no one is aloud to fall to there knees in ecstasy, or that writing shouldn't come from some personal, spiritual revelation---as all truly meaningful things do---as even the revelation of nothingness is nothing if not spiritual.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Hi folks.

Firstly, I'm really sorry if it appeared I was attacking the new journal. I meant only – in the spirit of give and take of literary opinions that characterises this forum – to take issue with some aspects of the editors' manifesto in terms of its view of literary history. I have my own take on Symbolist poetry, as does everyone with an interest in such things. My expressing a different view was really not meant to be a hostile act, just a stimulus to further discussion.

Evans, I'm also – and more specifically – sorry that you felt I was implying you had no right to like Bruno Schulz. What I meant to do was suggest that your list of approved writers contrasts to some extent with your manifesto. But perhaps that was too obvious a point to be worth making, and besides we all appreciate writers with whose literary approach we also have issues. I'm an atheist but I love Eliot's Four Quartets. Literary vision transcends critical categories. I wanted to challenge your critical categories but not in order to replace them with my own.

Sand, you nailed a weakness in my argument that has been troubling me all day. Apologies and thanks. In mitigation I would say that I should just have left out 'and Decadent' from my statement. I was allowing what I take from some of the literature in question to distort my sense of what the authors believed – an example of what Quentin Skinner called 'the mythology of doctrines', though in this case it was more the mythology of no doctrines.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

À propos: The Danish poet and author, Johannes Jørgensen (1866-1956), published a symbolist magazine called Taarnet (”The Tower”), partly named after the bell tower in Huysmans’ Là-bas. During its short existence (1893-94), Taarnet featured translations of Baudelaire, Flaubert, and Stabat Mater. Johannes Jørgensen converted to Catholicism around 1896.

Wilde’s preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray comes to mind, in particular these lines: ”There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

I think there can be no question as to the veracity of that. In 'My Work Is Not Yet Done' Ligotti has given the single best rejection of religion it has ever been my pleasure to read:

A: There is no grand scheme of things.
B: If there were a grand scheme of things, the fact - the FACT - that we are not equipped to perceive it, either by natural or supernatural means, is a nightmarish obscenity.
C: The very notion of a grand scheme of things is a nightmarish obscenity.

Nobody who has read TCATHR or just about any interview with Ligotti will question whether or not he sees eye to eye with Frank Dominio on this issue.

I don't see how ideas of the 'sacred' and 'holy' that are not embodied in some sort of belief in 'a grand scheme of things' makes any sense. From the point of view of the person who believes in sanctity and holiness, that is.
Symbolism (as in the Art Movement) would seem to share such a belief in a 'a grand scheme of things', if we are to believe Jean Moréas who coined the term 'Symbolism' in his Symbolist Manifesto published in 1886: "In this art, scenes from nature, human activities, and all other real world phenomena will not be described for their own sake; here, they are perceptible surfaces created to represent their esoteric affinities with the primordial Ideals." This idea also seems to be expressed in that Gustav Meyrink quote at the end of Evans' posts: "Each thing on earth is nothing but an eternal symbol clothed in dust."
The Frank Dominio version: "Each thing on earth is nothing but yet another manifestation of The Great Black Swine thrashing about in its own blackness without purpose."

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Actually, one doesn’t have to believe in “the grand scheme of things” to believe in “the sacred” or “the holy”. Alligators can become tigers—which is certainly a sacred thing, but it doesn’t depend on a “grand scheme”. The Buddha said the world neither exists nor does not exist. He never spoke of a “grand scheme”. But the Buddhas and Bodhisatvas are none the less sacred. Even in Hinduism, they talk of maya, they talk of the play of the universe, but they certainly don’t believe that there is some fellow scheming. This is in most respects a Christian idea—but even many mystical Christians did not believe in it, as can be deduced from reading the writings of the desert fathers. As for symbolists—the bulk of them were religious. Gustave Kahn was a Jew. Moreas, I believe, was a somewhat staunch Catholic. I think the same is true for Paul Adam. Most of those that were not outright religious, in a formal sense, were certainly spiritual—even their critics would say that, as they were attacked constantly for their “mysticism”. The only thing I can think is that terms like “symbolism” and “decadence” have been misused in modern times. Certainly even the “scholars” who write about them seem, by in large, to be doing so not so much from a standpoint of admiration or understanding as a kind of feeble intellectual exercise in order to gain some temporary merit (look at the essays in The Decadent Reader if you don’t believe me). And as long as some of the best of this group of writers remain either untranslated or mostly untranslated into English, what they thought will really not be known, except second hand. Leon Bloy, Jean Richepin, Gustave Kahn, Paul Adam, Jean Moreas, Felicien Champsaur---these authors have been either totally left out of English or only a slight bit of their writing is available. And three of them, Kahn, Adam, and Moreas, are responsible for forming what we today “symbolism”. I do recall seeing that Brian Stableford was translating something by Champsaur however---so hopefully that will come to light.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

What constitutes "decadent" or "Symbolist" or "traditionalist" clothing items in 2011? I am interested to see what people are wearing and whether their spiritual and literary ideals accord with their fashion. If people are aspiring to a condition of decadent Catholic Symbolism then I think they need to start dressing appropriately. This is a question that Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Huysmans would have taken very seriously.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

I am wearing a pair of wool socks and eating pudding. But I am not a Decadent or Symbolist, but rather belong to the Judging-the-Existence-of-the-Subtle-and-Marvelous school as set out by the American Council of Learned Societies.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Well, the day before yesterday I was attired in a tapered black frock coat, ruby waist-coat, white fitted shirt, slim black trousers and black heeled boots. A white cravat may have been added to this outfit had I not known the difficulties in throwing one on in the middle of a train journey.

Both Sand and Mr. Crisp can bear witness to my prefered mode of dress.

@ Sun Dog: Ironically Ligotti's stories, far more than Lovecraft's, contain an element of a grand scheme albeit one that is utterly malignant down to the very foundation of existence itself. It is implied, and more than implied, that humanity and life itself are to act as vessals for hungry darkness and be reabsorbed back into it ala the great black swine, that corrupt version of the Dao, that Frank visualised in My Work Is Not Yet Done.

Re: Leaves for Art -Regenerating the Literature of Symbolism
 

Not if you are aspiring to a condition of anarcho-socialist decadent catholic symbolism....and, er, have you seen photographs of Rimbaud? Dandyish would not be the mot juste. Evans, however, I can confirm is a dandy par excellence.