Editing Decadence (section)

===Decadent movement===
{{Main|Decadent movement}}
[[File:Félicien Rops - Pornokratès - 1878.jpg|thumb|''[[Pornocrates]]'' by [[Félicien Rops]] (1878)]]
Decadence was the name given to a number of late nineteenth-century writers who valued artifice over the earlier Romantics' naïve view of nature. Some of them triumphantly adopted the name, referring to themselves as Decadents. For the most part, they were influenced by the tradition of the [[Gothic novel]] and by the poetry and fiction of [[Edgar Allan Poe]], and were associated with [[symbolism (arts)|Symbolism]] and/or [[Aestheticism]].

This concept of decadence dates from the eighteenth century, especially from [[Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu|Montesquieu]] and [[John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester|Wilmot]]. It was taken up by critics as a term of abuse after [[Désiré Nisard]] used it against [[Victor Hugo]] and [[Romanticism]] in general. A later generation of Romantics, such as [[Théophile Gautier]] and [[Charles Baudelaire]] took the word as a badge of pride, as a sign of their rejection of what they saw as banal "progress." In the 1880s, a group of [[French literature|French writers]] referred to themselves as Decadents. The classic novel from this group is [[Joris-Karl Huysmans]]' ''[[À rebours|Against Nature]]'', often seen as the first great decadent work, though others attribute this honor to Baudelaire's works.

In Britain and Ireland the leading figure associated with the Decadent movement was Irish writer, [[Oscar Wilde]]. Other significant figures include [[Arthur Symons]], [[Aubrey Beardsley]] and [[Ernest Dowson]].

The Symbolist movement has frequently been confused with the Decadent movement. Several young writers were derisively referred to in the press as "decadent" in the mid-1880s. [[Jean Moréas]]' manifesto was largely a response to this [[polemic]]. A few of these writers embraced the term while most avoided it. Although the aesthetics of Symbolism and Decadence can be seen as overlapping in some areas, the two remain distinct.