Decadent Poetry (Penguin Classics)

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, formerly straight-laced English verse began loosening its stays. The English decadents submerged themselves in the pleasures of artifice and turned a fascinated eye on the intertwining of decay and desire. Among the poets in this intoxicating collection are Oscar Wilde on tainted love and the torments of the human spirit, Arthur Symons on the stupor of absinthe, Rosamond Marriott Watson on disenchantment and memory, W. B. Yeats on waning passion and faded beauty, and Lord Alfred Douglas on shame and secret love. Decadent Poetry opens a window onto an exhilarating moment in English literature.