How a 19th-Century Movement Shaped Our Modern Environmental Thought
In an age of climate crisis, a forgotten artistic movement from the 1800s might hold the key to reimagining our relationship with nature.
When we hear the term "decadent," we might envision excessive indulgence, moral decay, or the decline of civilizations. Yet in the late 19th century, the Decadent movement represented a profound cultural shift that continues to influence how we understand our relationship with the environment today. Recent scholarship by Dennis Denisoff in "Decadent Ecology in British Literature and Art, 1860–1910" reveals how this seemingly obscure artistic period developed revolutionary ideas about nature, spirituality, and human-nonhuman relationships that startlingly anticipate contemporary ecological thought 1 .
Championed a worldview that embraced decay, decomposition, and transformation as vital natural processes rather than symbols of moral failure.
Blended art, literature, emerging ecological science, and pagan spirituality to challenge the increasingly mechanized and anthropocentric worldview of the Victorian era.
By rediscovering this forgotten chapter of environmental thought, we might find valuable frameworks for addressing today's ecological crises.
The Decadent movement, which flourished primarily from the 1860s to 1910, was a late 19th-century artistic and literary movement centered in Western Europe. It followed an aesthetic ideology of excess and artificiality and was characterized by "a belief in the superiority of human fantasy and aesthetic hedonism over logic and the natural world" 3 .
The movement first gained coherence in France, with Charles Baudelaire proudly embracing the term "decadent" in his 1857 edition of Les Fleurs du mal 3 . However, it quickly spread across Europe, taking on distinctive characteristics in Britain where it intersected with Pre-Raphaelitism, Aestheticism, and the emerging field of ecology.
Unlike the Symbolists, who used natural imagery to elevate viewers to a higher spiritual plane, the Decadents saw nature as a complex, often unsettling system of interdependent relationships that included humans but didn't privilege them 3 . This perspective directly challenged the era's dominant views of nature as either a divinely ordered hierarchy or a resource for human exploitation.
Parallel to the Decadent movement, the 19th century witnessed a significant revival of pagan spirituality that profoundly influenced ecological thought. This pagan revival sought to "revive the deities, rituals, symbols and religious philosophies of ancient pre-Christian Europe" 2 .
The modern pagan revival has its origins in the 18th century, gaining momentum through Romantic poets like Percy Shelley and John Keats 2 . By the late 19th century, this movement had expanded significantly, with middle-class Londoners joining organizations like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, where they venerated "Jesus Christ alongside Ancient Egyptian and Greek deities" 2 .
This spiritual movement directly challenged the Christian-monotheistic worldview that positioned humans as separate from and superior to nature. Instead, pagan revivalists looked to pre-Christian traditions that viewed the natural world as imbued with sacred presence 2 . As Denisoff notes, this pagan perspective allowed for "a stronger sense of the freedom and power that pagans have repeatedly found in remaining uncategorized and unregulated" 4 .
| Figure | Contributions | Notable Works/Associations |
|---|---|---|
| Algernon Swinburne | Wrote luxuriant verse about Mother Earth, Persephone and Isis 2 | Poems and Ballads (1866) 4 |
| Walter Pater | Explored paganism as a persistent element in all religions 5 | Marius the Epicurean (1885) 4 |
| William Sharp | Edited The Pagan Review (1892) promoting "new paganism" 5 | Used pseudonym Fiona MacLeod 5 |
| "Michael Field" | Poetry exploring pagan motifs and trans-species intimacy 4 | Joint pen name of Katherine Bradley & Edith Cooper 4 |
Denisoff's research identifies several interconnected concepts that defined the decadent ecological worldview:
Decadent ecology embraced what Denisoff terms "open ecology" – a vision of nature as dynamic, unpredictable, and resistant to human control or full comprehension 4 .
This worldview was characterized by "renewed cultural references, the commingling of the aesthetic and the textual, a hint of scandal and a complex reworking of various spiritualities (Greco-Roman, Egyptian, Celtic and Germanic)" 4 .
Perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of decadent ecology was its revaluation of decay and decomposition. Where Victorian society often viewed decay as symbolic of moral or social decline, decadent artists and writers recognized it as an essential ecological process 4 .
This perspective reframed decomposition not as an ending but as a transformation – what Baudelaire famously termed the "phosphorescence of decay" 4 .
Decadent ecology anticipated contemporary queer theory through its challenge to normative categories and relationships. Denisoff analyzes works through "a queer framework of analysis, i.e., 'by definition whatever is at odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant'" 4 .
This approach revealed a decadent interest in "nonnormative intimacies" and "trans-species intimacy" that broke down rigid boundaries between species, genders, and moral categories 4 .
"Artworks like Solomon's Babylon Hath Been a Golden Cup (1859) and Habet! In the Coliseum A.D. XC (1865) used 'aesthetic continuity, indetermination and pagan motifs' to represent 'species interrelations as well as queer desires'" 4 .
In 1892, writer William Sharp launched an ambitious literary experiment: The Pagan Review, a periodical dedicated to promoting what he called the "new paganism" 5 . Though only one issue was ever published, this bold venture provides a fascinating case study in how decadent ecological principles were applied and received.
Sharp single-handedly wrote and edited the entire first issue under various pseudonyms, positioning the Review as a voice for "the 'younger generation,' or 'les jeunes'" 5 . The publication boldly declared its intention to challenge conventional values, featuring the motto "Sic transit gloria Grundy" on its cover – a clear jab at the personification of conventional morality, Mrs. Grundy 5 .
The Review advocated for what Sharp described as a "new inwardness to withdraw from life the approved veils of convention" 5 . This aligned with the broader decadent goal of rejecting bourgeois norms and exploring alternative relationships with nature, spirituality, and sexuality.
| Publication Date | August 1892 (single issue) 5 |
|---|---|
| Editor/Writer | William Sharp (under various pseudonyms) 5 |
| Stated Mission | Promote the "new paganism" among the younger generation 5 |
| Motto | "Sic transit gloria Grundy" 5 |
| Critical Reception | Largely negative, criticized as pretentious and ill-informed 5 |
| Historical Significance | Illustrates literary neo-paganism and its challenges in Victorian society 5 |
The critical reception to The Pagan Review was largely negative, revealing the challenges decadent thinkers faced in transforming cultural norms. The Saturday Review disparaged its "pretensions to épater le bourgeois" and criticized its writing style as suffering from "a regrettable confusion between painting and poetry techniques" 5 .
More substantially, the reviewer took the publication to task for its "meagre knowledge of paganism" and advised contributors to read "the veritable pagans" like Homer, Sophocles, and Virgil rather than contemporary figures like Paul Verlaine or George Meredith 5 .
Despite its brief existence, The Pagan Review represents a significant moment in the history of decadent ecology. As Bénédicte Coste notes, the Review can be understood as part of "the 'new' mania of the 1890s" that included various progressive movements 5 .
Scholars now recognize The Pagan Review as an important manifestation of "late-nineteenth-century paganism [that] occurred within a larger context involving scientific discourses, as well as multiple and increasingly diversified forms of religion" 5 . It embodied the decadent ecological vision by blending literary innovation, spiritual exploration, and cultural rebellion.
Decadent ecology drew upon a diverse range of intellectual resources and methodological approaches in developing its unique perspective on nature and culture:
| Resource Category | Specific Influences | Ecological Application |
|---|---|---|
| Scientific | Haeckel's ecology, Darwin's evolutionary theory 4 | Understanding natural interconnectedness and transformation |
| Philosophical | Platonism, Neo-Platonism 2 | Spiritual framework for cosmic unity and natural sacredness |
| Spiritual | Greco-Roman, Egyptian, Celtic, Germanic paganism 4 | Non-Christian models of nature reverence |
| Aesthetic | Symbolism, Aestheticism, Pre-Raphaelitism 4 | Artistic strategies to convey ecological ideas |
The decadent ecological vision that Denisoff recovers from 19th-century literature and art offers surprisingly relevant insights for our current environmental challenges. Their open ecology perspective anticipates contemporary complex systems theory in recognizing that natural systems cannot be fully controlled or comprehended by humans 4 . Their revaluation of decay provides a needed corrective to growth-obsessed economic models, reminding us that decomposition enables new life 4 . Their queer ecological approach challenges rigid categorical thinking that separates humans from nature and species from each other 4 .
Perhaps most importantly, the decadent ecological tradition demonstrates that addressing environmental crises requires more than technological solutions – it demands new cultural narratives, spiritual orientations, and aesthetic sensibilities. As Denisoff's research reveals, the decadents and pagan revivalists developed "an approach to the world that is more self-aware, open-minded and inviting of difference not only among humans but across species" 8 .
In embracing uncertainty, celebrating transformation, and recognizing our fundamental entanglement with the more-than-human world, these 19th-century thinkers developed an ecological ethos we would do well to recover today. Their vision of a world where "humans learn to respect and work with other species and forces, all acknowledging their mutual reliance and the limits of their knowledge" offers a powerful alternative to the extractive mindset that has created our current environmental predicament 8 .