Your turn #4

Robert Longo, Untitled, from the series Men in the Cities (1979)

Good class. At some point I'd like to come back to the social idea of decadence, i.e., how this aesthetic pursuit of the 1880's can be compared to the so-called "me decade" of the 1970's; that unstable balance between refined gratification and raw glut. In this regard, I recommend Social Disease by Paul Rudnick, a novel which restores the luster to decadent style by offering no apologies for the unabashed hedonism of its cast of totally self-indulgent characters. As Thomas Reed Whissen writes in his The Devil's Advocate: Decadence in Modern Literature,

They  devote every moment of the day and night, sleeping and waking, to the pursuit of sensory gratification. The only thing that gives them a moment's pause is the fear that they may not be burning brightly enough, not maintaining a maximum level of ecstasy.

Pick any theme you'd like from the series. Next Thursday we'll go at it. Go ahead!

(This post closes Friday, February 25@ 11pm).
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By the way, click here for some of Beardsley's erotica!