Trance and dream
Life as a drama or performance
- Dance: John Barlas's "The Dancing Girl"
- Puppet show: Oscar Wilde's "The Harlot's House"; Max Beerbohm's "A Defence of Cosmetics"
Jewels and instances of extreme artifice (the anti-natural)
- Jewels: Oscar Wilde's "Symphony In Yellow"
- Masks: Aubrey Beardsley ,
- Byzantine goldwork: W. B. Yeats's "Sailing to Byzantium"
- Cosmetics: Max Beerbohm's "A Defence of Cosmetics",
- The Dandy: Oscar Wilde and Dorian Gray
Particularly ornate, perverse, or unnatural examples of natural phenonena
- Orchids Theodore Wratislaw's "Orchids", Husysmans's A Rebours
- Peacocks: Beardsley's The Peacock Skirt and cover design for Salome
Perverse people, customs, and events
- John Barlas's "Terrible Love"
- Nero and other evil Roman emperors
The Sphinx
Instances of transience
- Beardsley and Whistler's butterfly
- Flowers: Huysmans, Swinburne,
- Sunset: Swinburne's "Evening on the Broads"
- Autumn: Dowson's "Autumn"
- The self: Barlas's "Oblivion").
Last modified 16 May 2008