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| Imaginative Minds: An Interdisciplinary Symposium30 April-1 May 2004The British Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AHThe Decadent imagination: Synaesthesia or the influence of the Green Fairy?Professor John Harrison1 19th century research into synaesthesia reached its zenith in the 1890s at the same time as French decadent poets and writers were fondly speaking of ‘the unity of sensation’. Over the following thirty years this view influenced a number of artists, composers and authors, many of whom have been traditionally described as synaesthetes. Modern neuroscience has confirmed the status of synaesthesia as an apparently benign condition and has characterised the profile of a typical ‘sufferer’. However, the retrospective application of this knowledge has raised significant doubts regarding synaesthesia’s role in driving the decadent imagination. In this presentation we will characterise what is known of synaesthesia, consider its prevalence and critique the view that the work of Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Huysmans, Kandinsky, Scriabin and others was influenced by the condition.
1. Russell Cairns Unit, Oxford |
