Kipling and the fin-de-siècle

Abstract

'Fin de siécle', murmured Lord Henry with languid anticipation in the 1891 version of Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wilde's novel first appeared in Lippincott's Magazine in June 1890. Six months later, the same headlining position was occupied by the periodical version of Kipling's 'The Light That Failed'. That version and the first English edition of The Light That Failed (1891) would seem to be a long way from Wilde's work and his 'Wardour Street aestheticism'. However, both novels involve artworks and artists, and both show how sexual identity has become problematic (and a subject for analysis) at the end of the century. Kipling’s novel explores what he calls the 'good love' between men and the much more difficult territory of male-female relations. One of the complicating factors, for Kipling, is women's refusal to play the role that men expect. In Maisie and 'the red-haired girl', Kipling presents his version of the 'New Woman'. At the same time, Kipling's novel serves to remind us that 'empire-building' was also part of the fin-de-siécle. He attempts to project a masculinist ideology within, and as part of, an imperialist vision. However, the attempt to assert a military model of masculinity is constantly subverted from within by traces of homoeroticism within the homosocial bondings, disquieting elements of sadism, and the haunting sense that male separateness might be a limitation rather than a strength.