Decadent Ecology in British Literature and Art, 1860–1910: Decay, Desire, and the Pagan Revival by Dennis Denisoff (review)

Reviewed by: Decadent Ecology in British Literature and Art, 1860–1910: Decay, Desire, and the Pagan Revival by Dennis Denisoff Julia Skelly (bio) Decadent Ecology in British Literature and Art, 1860–1910: Decay, Desire, and the Pagan Revival, by Dennis Denisoff; pp. vi + 260. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021, £75.00, $99.99. Dennis Denisoff’s Decadent Ecology in British Literature and Art, 1860–1910: Decay, Desire, and the Pagan Revival is an incredibly important book, its style smooth as silk and brilliantly illuminating. But there are ethical strata in Decadent Ecology that lay the groundwork for future scholarship on decadence that makes this jewel of a book a singular achievement. With his usual wit and queer eye, and with a great deal of heart, Denisoff offers us a thorough excavation of what he terms “decadent ecology” with multiple objectives, including inviting an expanded ethical awareness of nonhuman animals and the environment (both organic and inorganic). Aiming to expand the canon of turn-of-the-century British decadence, considering both male and female writers and artists, Denisoff’s approach is an ethical action, one that brings attention to understudied figures such as Moina Mathers and Florence Farr in a discussion of “decadent feminism” (140). [End Page 143] Denisoff attends not only to the well-known misogyny of British decadence, but also to racist subtexts in the work of some decadent writers. Not satisfied with simply pointing out anti-Black and anti-Indigenous racism, he goes further in citing Indigenous epistemologies that complement his definition of decadent ecology. According to Denisoff, “A decadent ecology such as that envisioned by [Algernon] Swinburne differs in being characterized by disruption, defilement, and excess operating beyond human comprehension, modeling, or management. Such an open ecology is decadent not only in its historical and cultural references but also in its destabilizing forms” (7). This vision of decadent ecology functions productively in dialogue with the work of Indigenous scholars concerned with the so-called Anthropocene. Métis scholar Zoe Todd, in a chapter entitled “Indigenizing the Anthropocene,” writes: “An effective art of the Anthropocene is one that directly engages with the structural violences of heteropatriarchy and white supremacy as they shape discourses and praxis” (Art in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among Aesthetics, Politics, Environments and Epistemologies, edited by Heather Davis and Etienne Turpin [Open Humanities Press, 2015], 248–9, emphasis original). Denisoff makes a related point when he observes that Swinburne’s poem “The Leper” (1866) reveals that decadents “consider[ed] rot, filth, and the seemingly lesser creatures that thrive on them as an inspiration to engage philosophically and ethically the notion of an indeterminate, open set of relationships from which humans are unable to extricate themselves” (19). Bringing decadence studies into conversation with Indigenous knowledge is an extremely powerful act of allyship that not only brings attention to the work of Indigenous scholars, but also offers concrete solutions for making social and environmental changes in our own decadent age. In chapter 1 Denisoff refers explicitly to “Indigenous activism,” and he concludes his text with Indigenous poet Tommy Pico—“a queer member of the Kumeyaay nation”—whose poetry “evokes the skepticism of the eco-pagan decadents regarding the rise of scientific materialism, suggesting Pico and the decadents might share an inspiration for their ecological visions” (20, 221). Chapter 1, “Decadent Ecology and the Pagan Revival,” examines the pagan revival’s influence on late-nineteenth-century decadence. Denisoff focuses primarily on Swinburne and Walter Pater, particularly Marius the Epicurean (1885), as well as Frederick Sandys’s painting Medea (1868), which is the book’s gorgeous, golden cover image. Although his visual analysis of Medea is not lengthy, it is fascinating and sheds new light on the painting, “which Swinburne declared a masterpiece” (29). Chapter 2 is also dedicated to Pater, whose work Denisoff considers through the frame of the decadent Anthropocene. Chapter 3, “The Lick of Love: Trans-Species Intimacy in Simeon Solomon and Michael Field,” focuses on works by Solomon, a painter influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites, and the poetry of Michael Field (Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper), showing how all three artists were concerned with intimacies among humans, nature, and nonhuman animals. The notion and experience of...

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