Neo-Victorian Romanticism and Decadence: The Reconceptualization of Realism from John Henry Newman to James Stephens

Abstract

This article explores the resurgence of Romantic aesthetics during the late nineteenth century, and assesses such a resurgence as a neo-Victorian phenomenon. Firstly, the argument tackles realism as the dominant formal and conceptual register of the Victorian Age, investigating in particular the reconceptualization of social realism put forth by decadent artists such as Oscar Wilde and Walter Pater, and by Irish modernist writer James Stephens (1880-1950). Secondly, such a reconceptualization is assessed as a reworking of theoretical principles set forth during the Victorian Age by John Henry Newman. Finally, an overview of such principles, largely based on Romantic premises such as idealism and immaterialism, is provided so as to bring into focus the reception of Newman’s ‘aesthetic idealism’ during decadence and High Modernism.