Aestheticism and the Femme Fatale charts the development of a figure that came to dominate the nineteenth century aesthetic imagination: that of the cruel and beautiful woman, the Femme fatale.
Drawing upon a variety of critical approaches, the author establishe.
This study documents the rise of a "masochist aesthetic," one that enabled several generations of Victorian artists and writers to liberate their aesthetic production from the strictures of a utilitarian, patriarchal critical culture.
Aestheticism and the Femme Fatale charts the development of a figure that came to dominate the nineteenth century aesthetic imagination: that of the cruel and beautiful woman, the Femme fatale