Orientalism in the American context differs from its better-known British and Continental manifestations in some significant respects. Principal among these is the absence of anything like the centuries-long colonialist projects that rendered the inhabitants of distant lands of either the Near or the Far East as subjects – but not citizens – of Western empire. In this respect, America actually has something in common with India: both were victims of the commercial and imperial ambitions of Great Britain. The shared past probably has something to do with the imaginary attachment certain Americans entertained between themselves and the nations of the Far East: at different periods and in different ways, they believed that something of value might be gained by greater exposure to the political, religious and artistic traditions of China, India and Japan. The Near East not so much: better known today as the Middle East, it was after all the Holy Land, the very fount of Christianity that gave the Puritan settlers the strength and courage they needed to pursue the righteous life in the New World free of the hated strictures of Church and King.

Notions of decadence, decline, and decay are intrinsically linked to the history of art. The discipline’s three recognized forefathers ? Giorgio Vasari, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, and Heinrich Wölfflin ? all relied on the concept of decadence (and its antonym, progress) to make sense of the history of the visual arts and to evaluate the art of their times. A developmental model of art was central to the interpretative schemes of these art historians. In this organicist model, earlier developments prepare the stage for what comes later; and after a particular style flourishes for a time, its decline is inevitable as newer styles overtake it. Decadent artists such as Gustave Moreau and Aubrey Beardsley mock aesthetic standards and moral rules, precluding universal appreciation, and proudly so. Decadent artists and decadent audiences are estranged from their society and feel disdain for those who are scandalized by decadent art’s innovative form and immoral subject matter.

The Romans had a difficult relationship with the kind of luxury and excess that we think of as indicators of moral and social decadence. But in many ways they revelled in such luxury. Readily accepting the financial rewards of empire, they spent huge sums on their own benefits. Whether in the colossal public games in the amphitheatre and the circus, in the opulent imperial bath complexes, or in extravagant private villas, Romans of all social levels delighted in the very best that life was thought to offer. Chapter 1 examines how far the evidence supports this somewhat melodramatic view of Rome by looking at the ways in which luxury spread in the Roman world. It also looks at the ways this growth in luxury compelled the Romans to create new concepts to understand the phenomenon. Luxury was almost never seen as a simple index of increased wealth. Rather, it raised all manner of moral issues among Rome’s ruling classes, many of which long outlived the end of the Roman empire itself.

From its emergence in the mid-nineteenth century, decadence has been, fundamentally, a socio-cultural response to urban modernity. Indeed, decadence is all but unthinkable outside the borders of the modern metropolis. Hence this chapter treats literature less as a literary critic would and more as an urbanist thinker might. An urbanist reading of a decadent text must perforce pay attention not only to urban geography, including the plan of the city in which the work is set, its dominant architectural styles, socio-economic differences in neighborhoods, and so on, but also to the cultural, social, and psychological meanings that the urban setting produces in a particular decadent text. In this essay, the urbanist approach is brought to bear on three novels whose urban geography is especially significant to their respective narratives: Gabriele D’Annunzio’s Il Piacere [Pleasure] (1889), Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), and Thomas Mann’s Der Tod in Venedig [Death in Venice] (1912). These three works illustrate, respectively, the special relationship of the urban scene to cultural, social, and psychological issues germane to the decadent narrative of each novel.

Decadent works, decadent themes, and decadent personalities figure prominently in the history of film, not only because of screen adaptations of novels and plays (there are at least three versions of Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and many more adaptations of Wilde’s plays), but also because of the proliferation of decadent themes and types, especially in the silent era. Examples include Theda Bara’s vamp persona and the frequent use of decadent settings for the silent mise-en-scène, such as pre-WWI Vienna in Erich von Stroheim’s The Wedding March (1928). Two key periods of decadence ? the Roman Empire and libertine France ? form the bases of the two modern films most identified with decadence: Federico Fellini’s Satyricon (1969) and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò, or 120 Days of Sodom (1975). Some critics refer to Salò as the ‘last art film’ in cinema history, an assessment that reflects a sense that cinema itself has since entered a period of decadence. But time and again, some filmic form of ‘decadence’ has actually helped to enliven cinema and ensure its continuing artistic value.

In keeping with the nature of the Cambridge Critical Concepts series, the introduction establishes decadence as a concept. We show how the concept emerges from a combination of etymology and history, and how decadence cuts across and calls into question traditional literary categories, such as genre and periodization. We articulate the relevance of decadence to recent literary interests, such as gender politics and queer theory. Finally, we explain the rationale for the organization of the volume as an effort to ‘scale up’ and reset the parameters of decadence as a concept; preview the individual contributions to the collection; and clarify the structure of the volume: the origins of the concept of decadence, its development through nineteenth-century fields, and its application to various twentieth-century disciplines and literary modalities. The introduction concludes with commentary on the contemporary resonance of decadence today.