Decadent women poets: translingual thresholds

Abstract

Though the field of decadence is currently being reformulated as a global phenomenon (the result of a major move in literary studies towards World Literature), the rich culture of modern languages present in the work of women writers remains mostly unexplored. This essay uses as case studies poems by Christina Rossetti and Sarojini Naidu. Through a translingual framework, it reflects on the continual mediation of languages present in their work, the result of their cosmopolitan, multilingual lives. Emphasizing the creative energy modern languages brought to their decadent works, the essay highlights their linguistic experimentalism and how they destabilized the masculine and imperialist politics of the English language. The overall aim of this essay is to underscore that there is a larger linguistic and cultural history of women's decadence that needs to be written by many critics working in many languages and cultural histories.