Arthur Symons's impressionist epistemology:Decadence and Embodied Cognition

If Decadent poetry is “one of the most comprehensive modern attempts to turn sex into epistemology,” how might ideas of embodied cognition help us understand what that might mean? This article responds to that question with an analysis of an Impressionist, erotic epistemology in Arthur Symons work. Focusing on London Nights (1897), which considers questions of erotic epistemology, it is argued that Impressionist techniques become a vehicle in his poetry for exploring cognition, Impressionism becoming a key mode of Decadent apprehension and a crucial means for questioning Decadent epistemologies. Embodied cognition theory expands our understanding of both the possibilities and conceptual contexts of Impressionism within a literary historical context.