ABSTRACT
The connection of Byron with later Decadent writings seems obvious. Wordsworth is usually regarded as the antithesis of Decadence, aesthetic or otherwise, and this cannot be wholly wrong. It argues, nevertheless, that Byron affects primarily Continental Decadent art and writings in ways that, though obvious, are largely superficial, though hidden, factor in the accommodation of Decadent assumptions in British culture and, secondly, that the word 'Decadent' does illumine something central in him. Byron, on the other hand, has polarities rather than a centre, and the word 'Decadent' does not much illumine these polarities. Baudelaire dislikes Byron's 'prolixity and verbiage' not least because he saw his task as freeing himself from the influence of those French Romantics who were undoubtedly directly influenced by Byron Lamartine, Vigny, Musset, and Hugo, though he admired Vigny's poetry. The fruit of concentrated attention for him is always the copiousness which Baudelaire rejects.
