The Decadent Construction of Nature in Georges Rodenbach's "L'Arbre"

Abstract

Decadence, as Charles Bernheimer claims, may be defined by way of contrast with an imaginary wholeness that is seen as being lost. In fin-de-siecle fiction, categories of history and nature are constantly produced . . . in the form of what one might call structural fantasies, oppositional strategies that construct decadence as a knowable negativity (Bernheimer 58). Etymologically stressing its deciduous overripeness, its separation and fall from the norm from which it deviates, decadence denies a hope in temporal advancement since what is healthy, good, and worthy is relegated to history. Progress does not lead to enlightenment and happiness but to an increase in the distance from a past that is idealized. The culture of which decadence is the supreme manifestation regards itself as debris left after civilization's ruin. It nostalgically looks backward toward nature and tradition, which it implicitly acknowledges as illusory cultural constructs. A sense of dereliction in a disenchanting present leads Decadents to value what is historically irrecoverable and what is identified as a source of nurture that is forsaken in favor of art.