Abstract
This thesis explores how women writers who contributed to the quarterly periodical The Yellow Book (1894-1897) used decadent strategies to reconsider gendered identities. This research examines the writing that Olive Custance, Ella D’Arcy, Vernon Lee, and Ada Leverson contributed to The Yellow Book, and interrogates selections of their wider oeuvres in order to examine their use of decadence. I use feminist frameworks, applying first-wave feminist theory alongside more recent interpretations of feminine language and gender performativity. Engaging with these theoretical backgrounds, I posit that these writers use multifaceted techniques to negotiate gendered identities, often assimilating stereotypically feminine logos and reconsidering phallocentric decadent discourse in order to subvert convention and to offer more nuanced impressions of female selfhood at the fin de siècle.
I argue that these writers were adept at capitalising on their positions of exclusion; the elite decadent literary movement and wider fin-de-siècle social structures posed challenges to their careers and identities, and their experiences encouraged them to reconsider the presentation of gender in their writing. Throughout this research, I examine life writing alongside fiction to argue that these writers fluidly shift representations of self to challenge positions of exclusion throughout their careers. I suggest that Custance and Lee use fantastical settings and images of liminality to encode same-sex or ambiguous desires in their writing. Furthermore, I analyse D’Arcy’s and Leverson’s direct criticism of marriage and phallocentric heteronormativity. I consider why The Yellow Book was an ideal space for women writers to question the position of female characters and authors in the decadent movement, arguing that they located their work in this controversial periodical to challenge phallocentrism and to champion fluid gendered identities. In this, they ensured that their own commentary on gender, sexuality, and their experiences as writers became a part of Yellow Book culture and fin-de-siècle literary history.