{"product_id":"the-decadent-republic-of-letters-taste-politics-and-cosmopolitan-community-from-baudelaire-to-beardsley-9780812244496","title":"The Decadent Republic of Letters: Taste, Politics, and Cosmopolitan Community from Baudelaire to Beardsley","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhile scholars have long associated the group of nineteenth-century French and English writers and artists known as the decadents with alienation, escapism, and withdrawal from the social and political world, Matthew Potolsky offers an alternative reading of the movement. In \u003ci\u003eThe Decadent Republic of Letters\u003c\/i\u003e, he treats the decadents as fundamentally international, defined by a radically cosmopolitan ideal of literary sociability rather than an inward turn toward private aesthetics and exotic sensation. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Decadent Republic of Letters\u003c\/i\u003e looks at the way Charles Baudelaire, Théophile Gautier, and Algernon Charles Swinburne used the language of classical republican political theory to define beauty as a form of civic virtue. The libertines, an international underground united by subversive erudition, gave decadents a model of countercultural affiliation and a vocabulary for criticizing national canon formation and the increasing state control of education. Decadent figures such as Joris-Karl Huysmans, Walter Pater, Vernon Lee, Aubrey Beardsley, and Oscar Wilde envisioned communities formed through the circulation of art. Decadents lavishly praised their counterparts from other traditions, translated and imitated their works, and imagined the possibility of new associations forged through shared tastes and texts. Defined by artistic values rather than language, geography, or ethnic identity, these groups anticipated forms of attachment that are now familiar in youth countercultures and on social networking sites. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBold and sophisticated, \u003ci\u003eThe Decadent Republic of Letters\u003c\/i\u003e unearths a pervasive decadent critique of nineteenth-century notions of political community and reveals the collective effort by the major figures of the movement to find alternatives to liberalism and nationalism.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Matthew Potolsky\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Pennsylvania Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 11\/06\/2012\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSeries:\u003c\/b\u003e Haney Foundation\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 240\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.01lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.10h x 6.10w x 0.80d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780812244496","brand":"University of Pennsylvania Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44365821018249,"sku":"9780812244496","price":85.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0636\/9240\/6921\/files\/img_44efd7bf-f847-4eb8-8c63-2934d9393add.jpg?v=1751346440","url":"https:\/\/sonsanddaughtersbooks.com\/products\/the-decadent-republic-of-letters-taste-politics-and-cosmopolitan-community-from-baudelaire-to-beardsley-9780812244496","provider":"Sons and Daughters Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}