Zola's critical opinions on “les dieux de la chapelle décadente”

Abstract

Although both Verlaine and Mallarm6 despised labels and often denied allegiance to specific literary schools, they were, nonetheless, the acknowledged founding fathers and "les maitres incontestables" of the Decadent movement. As "le prince de la d6cadence", as R6my de Gourmont called him, Mallarm6 was indeed a formidable leader. Verlaine, however, was the greatest single force behind the creation of this movement. Despite their accomplishments, Zola, we shall see, felt little admiration for these two important poets. Verlaine's influence probably originated with the publication of his "Art po6tique", in 1882, and continued to gather momentum with the appearance, a year later, of his PoOtes maudits, a study of Corbi~re, Rimbaud, and Mallarm& This study, published in Lutdce, had the impact of a manifesto to the young people of 1883. In it Verlaine had attempted to enunciate a literary formula as distant froml Parnassian artifice as from the descriptive excesses of Naturalism. By 1886, Verlaine had emerged as the source and center of a new poetic movement. Ernest Raynaud, in his book, En Marge de la mYlde symboliste, calls it Verlaine's school and recalls how the term came into existence: "Son ~cole fut d'abord appel6e ddcadente. C'&ait une injure de la critique clue Verlaine se plut • relever par bravade en drapeau, ~t la fagon des gueux et des sans-culottes." Raynaud goes on to quote Verlaine's own words: "j'aime ce mot de d~cadence, tout miroitant de pourpre et d'or. I1 suppose des pens~es raffin&s d'extr~me civilisation, une haute culture litt6raire, une ~me capable d'inten-