The Decadent Short Story and HTML

In Kosta Boyiopoulos’ “Introduction” to The Decadent Short Story, one of the readings for today, I found myself fascinated with the idea of decadence as a phenomenon which had the ability to manifest through the publications of little magazines. On page 1 this opportunity is expressed as an “excessive focus on style at the expense of content.” This is an idea that I found interesting, as it demonstrates how much the visual or aesthetic can influence a movement despite being evolved in what we think of as a typically text-based medium (magazines). I think this absolutely relates to a concept we’ve been discussing in class about the visual and text being equals, and both embedded into publications. This idea of dipping into different mediums or attributes is also articulated by Boyiopoulos, stating that the decadent short story uses many aspects of different genres to create something new. In this work the definition of decadence surrounds the notion of yearning for the impossible, which gives the opportunity to push an aesthetic based idea further into the symbolic.

I also found the HTML aspect of our magazine page assignment very rewarding, as we could potentially try to replicate a page from our chosen little magazine. The layout of the text and images becomes just as important as the actual art itself.