Naturalism and decadence: The case of Hubert Crackanthorpe

Greenslade, William

Abstract

This chapter examines the conjunctions between naturalist poetics and decadent sensibility in late nineteenth-century British fiction. It examines how the highly influential yet aesthetically problematic reach of naturalism became entangled in debates in 1880s and early 1890s about realism and naturalism, the status of fiction and questions of taste in literary representation. The chapter goes onto examine the case of the short story writer and critic, Hubert Crackanthorpe who engages both with naturalist seeing in the bleak subject matter of his ‘documents of hell’ (as one critic put it) and with a conscious aestheticizing of this subject matter in his deliberately dispassionate handling of the human predicaments he opens up. The chapter argues that Crackanthorpe occupies a pivotal place in the negotiation between naturalist and aesthetic modes of seeing and, as such, is a significant figure in the evolution of the modernist short story in Britain.

• Publication Date: Jun 13, 2013
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Pages: 163-180
• Series Title: Palgrave Studies in Nineteenth-Century Writing and Culture
• Book Title: Decadent Poetics: Literature and Form at the British Fin de Siecle
• ISBN: 9781137348289
• Keywords: Crackanthorpe, naturalism, decadence
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/930914
• Publisher URL: http://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781137348289
• Contract Date: Jan 15, 2012