Politics of space in the English Fin de Siecle poetry

This dissertation aims to determine the function of space and how space is depicted in the poems written during the fin de siècle period, which is one of the undervalued ages in English literary history. However, it can be claimed that fin de siècle is a distinctly unique period. Notably, while some poets adopted several elements from Victorian poetry, some others generally rejected Victorian poetics. Then, those nonconformist poets also criticised the traditional moral views and values of the middle class in the nineteenth century. Thus, a discrete poetics developed along with a poetic sensibility that focused on real urban places and characters. In order to analyse the poetry of the eighteen-nineties, three different poets have been selected, Oscar Wilde, Ernest Dowson, and Arthur Symons since they are the most prominent poets who formed the poetry of the period. In the poetry of these three poets, the concept of space gained a new dimension by means of the employment of a variety of locations from music halls to brothels, graveyards to prisons. As for the critical perspective, Henri Lefebvre's theory of space is applied in this study since he is a significant thinker who explores space in terms of its political aspects. By way of the analysis of the poems from a political perspective, these poets' use of space reveals the wish to escape from society. In this dissertation, space and poetry are intended to provide a more complex perspective allowing scholars to re-examine their perception about the concept of space in the poems of fin de siècle.