Decadence (pronounced dek-uh-duhns or dih-keyd-ns)
(1) The act or process of falling into an inferior
condition or state; deterioration; decay.
(2) Synonyms: decline, retrogression, degeneration
(3) Moral degeneration or decay; turpitude.
(4) Unrestrained or excessive self-indulgence.
(5) The decadent movement in literature (often with an initial
capital and extended sometimes to the visual arts).
1540–1550: From the early fifteenth century French décadence, from the Medieval Latin dēcadentia (decay), from the Late Latin dēcadent-, stem of dēcadēns (falling away), the present participle of the Vulgar Latin
dēcadere (to fall away; to decay), an
etymologically restored form of the Latin dēcidere
(to fall away, fail, sink, perish”), the construct being de- (apart, down) + cadere
(to fall (from the primitive Indo-European root kad- (to fall)). The meaning
“process of falling away from a better or more vital state” dates from the
1620s while the use to define epochs is traced by some historians to the sense
used of “decadent” in 1837 by Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881): “…in a state of
decline or decay (from a former condition of excellence)”, decadent from the from
French décadent (a back-formation
from décadence). The use to refer (disparaging) the perceived
corruption of literary values began in the 1850s and thirty years later was
common in both French and English criticism.
The addition of the sense of decadence being “a form of self-indulgence”
seems not to have emerged until the late 1960s when it was applied (negatively)
to the counter-culture but modern commerce soon re-packaged to use it of
products marketed as “desirable and satisfying”; creamy desserts were often so
labeled and the cake “Chocolate Decadence” became a generic term, the recipes
varying greatly in detail. Originally, the
term “decadence” was used of “a period of historical decline, particularly of
empires or civilizations” but, from the late nineteenth century, it shifted to
become a literary & artistic word describing a movement and later a type of
moral or cultural behavior, particularly human behavior that is seen as
self-indulgent or excessive. Finally, it
became the name of a chocolate cake, something (vaguely) linked to association
philosophers and historians would make between the decline of civilizations
declined from periods of greatness into moral and structural decay, often with
a focus on materialism and indulgence. Decadence
& decadency are nouns, decadent is a noun & verb and decadently is an
adverb; the noun plural is decadences.
The related adjective deciduous was from the Latin dēciduus (falling down or off), from dēcidō (fall down) and is now most familiar
from the arboreal branch of biology where it describes trees which shed their
leaves (variously in winter, the fall (autumn) or the dry season. However, in the technical language of anatomy
it’s used of body parts which fall off or are shed, at a particular time or
stage of development (ie not the result of injury or disease) and more
generally can be used figuratively of things transitory or ephemeral, this
mostly as a literary device. Obviously
also related is the noun decay, from the Middle English decayen & dekeyen (to
decrease, diminish), from the Anglo-Norman decaeir
(to fall away, decay, decline), from the Vulgar Latin dēcadere. Decay describes
the process or result of being gradually decomposed; rot, decomposition and is
widely used of qualities such as (1) a deterioration of condition; loss of
status, quality, strength, or fortune, (2) civic, societal or moral decay and (3)
systemic decay. It was also once used of
overthrows of governments and even now has a technical meaning in computer
programming.
Despite the spelling, unrelated is the noun “decade”. Decade (the spelling decad long obsolete) was from the Middle English decade, from the Old
French decade, from the Late Latin decādem ((set of) ten), from the Ancient
Greek δεκάς (dekás), from δέκα (déka) (ten). In English, the reference to a “span of ten
years” was originally a clipping of the phrase “decade of years”, that seeming
tautology existing because over the centuries there have been also “decades of
soldiers” (ie ten men), “decades of days” (in history a period of ten days, particularly
those in the ancient Egyptian, Coptic, and French Revolutionary calendars, “decades
of books” (a work in ten parts or books, particularly such divisions of Roman
historian Livy’s (Titus Livius; 59 BC–17 AD) Ab Urbe Condita (literally “From the Founding of the City” and in
English usually styled as History of Rome), “decades of prayers” (in the
rituals of the Roman Catholic Church, a series of prayers counted on a rosary,
typically consisting of an Our Father, followed by ten Hail Marys, and
concluding with a Glory Be and sometimes the Fatima Prayer), “decades of stuff”
(things which existed as a group, set or series of ten), The dominant, modern sense of “a period of
ten years” dates from the seventeenth century while the notion it “usually” is
one beginning with a year ending in 0 and ending with a year ending in 9” was
(more or less) formalized in the nineteenth.
In technical use “decade” has been re-purposed in some specialist fields
including the Braille language (to refer to the various sets of ten sequential characters
with predictable patterns), electronics (of devices or components used to
represent digits and physics & engineering (of the interval between any two
quantities having a ratio of 10 to 1).
For what most people do most of the time, a decade is “a period
of ten years beginning with a year ending in 0 and ending with a year ending in
9” (ie the 1980s, 1990s etc) bit it remains correct that a decade can be any
period of that duration (such as 1994-2003).
May style guides don’t approve of this, not because it’s technically
wrong but because it can tend to confuse if things are not carefully
phrased. That seems wise advice although
the suggestion terms like decennium or decennary can be a substitute for “non-standard”
ten-year periods is unlikely to catch on.
Words nerds note that the computation protocol for something like “the
1970s” is xxx0-xxx9 whereas for “real” decades it’s xxx1-xxx0, following the
practice for centuries and millennia, something which creates the certain anomalies
because there was no “year 0”, the Western calendrical shifting directly from 1
BC to 1 AD. “Decadence” and “decade” do
however sometimes mix: the Japanese term Lost Decade (失われた10年) (Ushinawareta Jūnen) coined in the late
1990s to describe the period of national economic stagnation in precipitated by
the collapse of the asset price bubble (notably Tokyo commercial floor-space)
which began in 1990. The phenomenon
though endured and economists responded in subsequent decades by adding 失われた20年(lost 20 years) and 失われた30年 (lost 30 years).
The 2020s are showing little indication of a return to high growth and
given Japan’s structural challenges (debt rations and an aging & declining population,
there’s an expectation 失われた40年 will appear in the late
2020.
The other chocolate cake: Chocolate Decadence Soap by Heritage Downs: Aus$6.50 (inc GST) per cake; the gift for the chocaholic who has everything.
In the history of art or literary theory, “decadent” was
in the nineteenth century iused to describe a period during which the output
was “qualitatively in decline” compared with the (perceived) excellence of a
former age. Historically, it was applied
to the Alexandrine period (300-30 BC) the period after the death of Augustus
(Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (known also as Octavianus (Octavian)); 63 BC-14
AD, founder of the Roman Empire (27 BC-476 AD) and first Roman emperor 27 BC-14
AD). In modern use it’s applied to the
late nineteenth century symbolist movement in France (the poetry a particular
target). The movement emphasized the
autonomy of art (exemplified in the contemporary phrase l'art pour l'art (art for art's sake), the need for sensationalism &
melodrama, egocentricity, the bizarre or (wholly or partially) artificial, and
the superior “outsider” position of the artist who was “in” yet not quite unambiguously
“of” society; a critic rather than a participant (which of course was a
reference to middle-class (or bourgeois society). What is now classified as “decadent” poetry
was preoccupied with personal experience, self-analysis, perversity, the suffering
of artists and elaborate and exotic sensations.
View of Amalfi (1844), pencil, ink & water colour by John Ruskin (1819-1900).
In France the exemplar of decadence was the poet & critic
Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) whose book of lyric poetry Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil; the first version published
in 1857) is regarded still a manifest of the movement (though some conservative
critics prefer “cult”) and the deconstructions who trace the changes in tone
(he continued to add material until his death) regard it as something of a “journal”
of the times. In English translation, Les Fleurs du mal is some 300 pages and,
in the way of the movement, the poetic forms are not “traditional” and some of
the imagery is as suggestive as the thematic motifs of eroticism, suffering,
sin, evil and death which will delight some and repel others and the latter wishing
to explore the movement might find more accessible the novel À rebours (Against the Grain (published
also as Against Nature); 1884) by the French author & art critic Joris-Karl
Huysmans (pseudonym of Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans (1848–1907)); it’s a
slimmer volume which English poet & critic Arthur Symons (1865–1945) would
later describe as the movement’s “breviary” (in this context “a brief summary”). There were many notable figures who devoted
their lives to proving their allegiance to this aesthetic cult and the preoccupation
with decay, ruins sadness and despair was appealing to nihilists and neo-Romantics,
linked even with twentieth century German fascism which was styled (however
misleadingly) as a revival of purity and a return to Classical roots. It never caught on in quite the same way in
the English-speaking world the influences are clear in the work of “excessively
civilized” & “troubled” figures like the Irish writer Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) and English aesthete John
Ruskin.
Chocolate Decadence Cake by Vegan Peace (Striving towards
peacefully sharing our Earth).
Ingredients (wet & dry to be mixed separately)
3 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted if lumpy (not Dutch process cocoa) (dry).
1 level teaspoon baking soda (dry).
¼ teaspoon sea salt (dry).
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar (wet).
1½ cup oil (sunflower, non-virgin olive, melted coconut, or safflower) (wet).
Freaky Frosting Ingredients
5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon non-hydrogenated margarine.
2¼cups plus 4 teaspoons
organic powdered (confectioner's) sugar.
2 teaspoons vanilla extract.
Pinch of sea salt.
½ cup chocolate soymilk.
Directions
(1) Preheat oven to 350° F (175° C).
(2) Oil 9 x 9 inch (230 x 230 mm) pan or a dozen muffin
cups.
(3) Mix wet & dry ingredients separately ensuring
each is lump-free and well-mixed.
(4) Gently combine wet-mix & dry-mix do not “over-mix”
(the batter will at this point taste strange but this will disappear in the
baking process.
(5) Pour mix into oiled baking pan or muffin cups and
bake until the point where a knife inserted in the centre comes out clean (ie
no trace of liquid or semi-liquid batter). For cupcakes, this should take about 20
minutes; for the pan between 30-40 minutes.
(6) Remove from oven and allow cake to cool before frosting.
Frosting Directions
(7) Using electric beater, whip margarine in a large bowl
until fluffy (do not over-whip.
(8) Slowly add in remaining ingredients one at a time, in
the order listed. Beat at high speed
until very fluffy, using a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of bowl as
needed.
(9) Refrigerate frosting until cake has cooled.
(10) Frost cake, ideally after allowing frosting to warm
to room temperature before serving cake. A chocolate decadence may be decorated with
edible flowers, raspberries, strawberries, chocolate shavings or whatever else
seems to suit.
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