Incarnating Decadence: Reading Des Esseintes's Bodies

Abstract

INCARNATING DECADENCE: READING DES ESSEINTES^S BODIES Wanda at Klee is a research assistant in the Department of English Marburg University in Germany. Decadence dressed dandies is a highly suggestive label. Extravagantly full who hunt for refined sensual experiences, preying on of disdain for the banal pleasures of the masses, as well as sexually threatening women men immediately come to our it mind. An etymological approach to the term reveals that associations refer to characters origi- nally expressed the decline of a classical standard of values, and indeed, our first who strictly deny established values, bourgeois moral values in particular. Yet, does this define them sufficiently as decadent ? A serial killer puts himself beyond the law, so does everyone tion, but who evades taxa- we would hardly call such people decadent. In will my reading of Joris-Karl Huysmans's novel A Rebours, I argue for a definition of decadence on the grounds of Its physical experience. protagonist, des Esseintes, displays a catalogue of characteristics which reflect associations with the term. many of our first first He is portrayed on the very page of the novel as the family: last offspring of a declining, aristocratic La decadence de males etait allee cette ancienne maison avait, sans nul doute, suivi regulierement son cours; I'effemination des en s'accentuant; comme pour achever I'oeuvre des ages, les des Esseintes marierent, pendant deux siecles, leurs enfants entre eux, usant leur reste les de vigueur dans unions consanguines. (Huysmans 61)