Pictorial Shakespeare, 1880-1890 - eTheses Repository - University ...

3ol
sociulisers in p; int. Indeed, it is poooible to re-c.rd the
entire rtistic movement called Aestheticism as a whim of a
newly-educated leisured class, dominated by well-informed
society hootessee. The classic formulation of this view of
the •eighties is that of Chesterton, who populates, in
The Victorian Age in Literature, a tine "rourhly sonev/here
about 1880" when the "two (rreat positive enthusiasms of
,/eatern Europe", Chri.ti nity and the French Revolution, had
"ex;i .usted each other" . He proposes lc'70 as the t lining
point of the century in another pr rt of his ee. i y, but is
certain about the nature, ii" not the ur- tion of the r; criod:
The ye:. rs that f ollov/cd on tii^t double dic>illur
ionment were like one lon^ afternoon
in a rich houee on a rainy day. It was not
merely tlirt everybody believed tii; t nothing
would ha;->r«en; it V.TB also that everybody believed
that .'..nyVuing ho,ppeiiing v;y.L even duller
tiir.n notain.^ iiappo
In this "stt-le atmoc,jx ore" a few "flickers of the old ..-/inburniun
flaine" survived. To Chesterton, the lonf; afternoon
conveyed a lesson as indirect as the r.:orr:l r.i jiificance of
Fntixer -:>rov^n*3 crir;in, .1 iavesti • tions:
...t- is tir.ie .if: produce m interreTiUKi iJ art
th;?t Iv d a truth of itfj o-.,ii; though tii^.t truth
was nerr to being only a consistent -lie..
This paradoxical "truth" le CD G.'iesterton to Wilde, to whom
v/uc entrusted the "decadent idea", '..iiich in "loss dexterous
hi,nds" went entirely to pieces and v hich "nobouy li's troubled
to pici: iro" . 'Jliesterton's description of Ke ford Park, under
the disguise of .»o.ffron r;-arlr, at the bc^i.jiiine of 'Jho. :'ixi /ho
ac -JUar^... .y (1908) oi-crs r: .iuil. r view in li/ liter vein:
It he .a boon the outb^.r;,1; of a nyecalativo
builcer, f intly tinned ;.it'a rrt, '.ho colled
its arcrdtccture '.orioti • .r-r- Elizabet-va-i and
so..jotir.ks uueen Anne, apparc^ioly under t/:.o
1 . -;v-es: ion tiit-.t t;ie t'.'O sovorei.-'iis v/erc
identical. It was described ith so-no r1u.;tice
aa an rortir-.tic colony, taourh i^ never ±