Yellow Nineties 2.0

Yellow Nineties 2.0 The Venture, 1905  <editor>Lorraine Janzen Kooistra</editor> </titleStmt> <editionStmt> <p> <date>2022</date> </p> </editionStmt> <publicationStmt> <idno>VV2_po1</idno>  <publisher>Yellow Nineties 2.0</publisher> <pubPlace>Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities</pubPlace> <address> <addrLine>English Department</addrLine> <addrLine>350 Victoria Street,</addrLine> <addrLine>Toronto ON,</addrLine> <addrLine>M5B 2K3</addrLine> <addrLine>Canada</addrLine> </address> <availability> <p>Usable according to the Creative Commons License <ref target="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/">Attribution Non-commercial Share-alike</ref>.</p> </availability> </publicationStmt> <sourceDesc> <biblStruct> <monogr> <editor>Laurence Housman and Somerset Maugham</editor> <author>Edmund Gosse</author>  <title>The Intellectual Ecstasy John Baillie London, E.C. 1905 Gosse, Edmund. "The Intellectual Ecstasy." The Venture: an Annual of Art and Literature, vol. 2, 1905, pp. 1-2. Venture Digital Edition, edited by Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, 2019-2022. Yellow Nineties 2.0, Toronto Metropolitan University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2022, https://1890s.ca/vv2-gosse-ecstasy

Our editorial method is informed by social-text editing principles. By “text” we mean verbal and visual printed material, including non-referential physical elements such as bindings, page layouts, and ornaments. We view any text as the outcome of collaborative processes that have specific manifestations at precise historical moments. The Yellow Nineties Online publishes facsimile editions of a select collection of fin-de- siècle aesthetic periodicals, together with paratexts of production and reception such as cover designs, advertising materials, and reviews. This historical material is enhanced by two kinds of peer-reviewed scholarly commentary: biographies of the periodicals’ contributors and associates; and critical introductions to each title and volume by experts in the field. All scholarly material on the site is vetted by the editor(s) and peer- reviewed by them and/or an international board of advisors. The site as a whole is peer- reviewed by NINES (Networked Infrastructure for Nineteenth-Century Electronic Scholarship). Contributors to the site retain personal copyright in their material. The site is licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license. Both primary and secondary materials, including all visual images, are marked up in TEI- (Textual-Encoding Initiative) compliant XML (Extensible Markup Language). To ensure maximum flexibility for users, magazines are available on the site as virtual objects (facsimiles) in FlipBook form; in HTML for online reading; in PDF for downloading and collecting; and in XML for those who wish to review and/or adapt our tag sets. In order to make ornamental devices, such as initial letters, head- and tail- pieces, searchable, we have developed a Database of Ornament in OMEKA, and linked it to the relevant pages of each magazine edition. As a dynamic structure, a scholarly website is always in process; Phase One of The Yellow Nineties Online (2010-2015) is completed and Phase Two (2016-2021) is underway.

1905 English English literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals Great Britain -- Periodicals Poetry Possible Genres (multiple): "Fiction," "Nonfiction," "Poetry," "Essay," "Paratext" (TOC, prospecti, advertisements, frontmatter, titlepage), "Review" (older reviews), "Criticism" (including critical introductions), "Visual Art" (images, bio images), Historiography (bios),"Bibliography" (intros, crit, bios, anything with a bibliography attached), "Drama," "Ephemera," "Translation," "Religion," "Travel Writing," "Music, Other,") Periodical Possible Types (singular): "Periodical" (texts/most stuff), "Interactive Resource" (current writing, biographies, not old reviews), "Still Image" (images, visual art), "Physical Object" (posters, prospecti) Book History Literature Possible Disciplines (multiple): "Book History (include for all periodical items)," "Literature," "Art History (use for art, also use for reviews)," "History (don't use in a general sense)," "Theatre Studies," "Musicology," "Philosophy," "Sociology," "Anthropology," "Science"

The Intellectual Ecstasy

“Hinc Stygias ebrius hausit aquas” DIOGENES LAERTIUS

I

OF Epicurus it is told That growing weak and faint and cold, And falling towards that frigid state By doctors held as desperate, He drowned his senses in a flood Of th’ ancient vine’s ebullient blood, Ingurgitating draughts of fire To lull his fear and his desire.

II

But was he sober when he died?— Whereto an epigram replied: “He was too drunk to taste or care How bitter Stygian waters were; Blest was he therefore.” Can we draw A sweetness from this cynic saw, Or of this mithridate distil An antidote for life’s long ill?

III

Perchance: since, as we linger thus, ’Twixt dawn and dark swung pendulous, Supported through our irksome state By fond illusions of past date, The mind within itself retires, And there inspects its dead desires— A soothsayer, revolving thrice Around the ambiguous sacrifice.

IV

In vain we toil to waken flame Where once without a breath it came; In vain old auguries invoke Of swarming bees and stricken oak; The Venture 2 The spirit feels no secret stir O’ the exquisite remembrancer, And into depths, unsealed in vain, Drop hollow-sounding tears like rain.

V

But still, in philosophic sense, A purple cluster glows intense, And from an intellectual vine Rich madness gushes, half divine; Droops the dull vein in chill eclipse? A heavenly beaker slakes our lips, And cups of thrilling freshness lend Fantastic aid as we descend.

VI

So, drunk with knowledge, only fed With rapture from the fountain-head, Until the bells of God shall call The flush’d, insatiate bacchanal, Let her go smiling toward her rest On tottering footsteps, faintly blest, And, in that fair delirium dight, Walk down to darkness in great light.

EDMUND GOSSE