This project asks you to engage an issue of The Yellow Book, the periodical considered by many exemplary of the spirit of the British Victorian fin de siècle, often read as closely linked to “Decadence.” Issues can be found at this website edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra (which absorbs a previous iteration), framed with scholarly introductions that can help you navigate each issue.
(1) Select three items housed in your chosen issue of The Yellow Book to feature in your discussion—one prose piece (fiction or non-fiction), one poem, and one example of visual art. You may wish to search for items connected to the major topics we’ve addressed this term, such as “Aestheticism,” “The New Woman,” “The Dandy,” “Decadence,” the “Marriage Question,” science and evolution, empire, sexuality, art and morality – and/ or texts by/ related to writers we have treated.
(2) With the support of the introductions and other sources, identify the writers or visual artists of these three texts, providing a brief description (approximately 1/2 page)
(3) Describe each item for an audience unfamiliar with these texts. Provide an overview and supply a few salient and vivid details (c. 1 page).
(4) Comment on what interests you about each item—what catches your attention and why?— especially as sensitized by the work we have addressed this term. You might relate these three texts to one another if you note a dialogue among them, but there’s no need to do so if they don’t seem to connect fruitfully (c. 1 page).
(5) Develop brief discussion on how the prose and poetry, and if you wish, the example of visual art, relate to topics/ questions we have addressed this term. You may wish to compare these texts to other texts we have engaged this term. (c. 1 ½ pp.).
(6) Please include a list of Works Cited.
Sample Solution