By the 1890s, another term had become associated 
with this focus on 'art for art's sake'.These 
included the notion of intense refinement; the valuing of 
artificiality over nature; a position of ennui or boredom rather 
than of moral earnestness or the valuing of hard work; an 
interest in perversity and paradox, and in transgressive modes of 
sexuality.One of the most important explicators of decadence 
was the poet Arthur Symons, whose essay 'The Decadent 
Movement in Literature' (1893), described decadence as 'a new 
and beautiful and interesting disease'.