Paglia/decadence

I'm reading Camille Paglia's Sexual Personae. I remember it being trashed a lot when I was in college, but it's full of wonderful readings of decadence.

Here for example, on Kleist (and Bob Dylan):

"Decadence is a style of excess and extravagence which approaches self-parody. It operaticizes by overliteralizing. Hence one laughs even when shocked or repelled, as in Sade."