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Literatur
Robert Musil,Der Man ohne Eigenschaften, Vol. I, Bk. 2 Pt. 1, Ch. 72.
Lucien Descaves, ed. “Les Foules de Lourdes,” in Huysmans,Œuvres complètes (Paris: Crès, 1928), vol. 18, uses this term to summarize all of Huysmans' critical butts, such as adulterated plainchant, modern church architecture, devotion of relics and false piety. Abbreviation:Lourdes.
Huysmans' priritual conversion to an austere Catholicism was already noticeable in the final passates of his “decadent” novelA Rebours (1884) and inLà-Bas (1891) it became very obviour. Especially this novel and the followingEn Route (1895) andLa Cathédrale (1898) mirror his own evolution.
Huysmans thought the theatrical conception of the new church an insult to the Virgin because she had asked for a new, plain builing herself. InLourdes, 112.
Flower, 94. See Note 6 for citation.
The collectionFive Novels, ed. 0. Sitwell, New Directions Paperbook, No. 518 (New York: New Directions, 1981) contains all the novels I have used: “The Flower Beneath the Foot”' (1–94) “Prancing Nigger,” (95–145), “Valmouth: A Romantic Novel,” (149–239) and “Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli,” (289–342). All references are to this edition, and in the notes I will use abreviated titles for reference:Flower, Nigger, Valmouth, andPirelli.
Théophile Gautier,Mademoiselle de Maupin (Paris: Charpentier, 1879), p. 146.
—Mademoiselle de Maupin, p. 221.
Albert Farmer,Le mouvement esthétique et “décadent” en Angleterre (1873–1900), Bibliothèque de la Revue de Littérature Comparée, No. 75 (Paris: Champion, 1931), 189.
Flower, 20.
Whether Pirelli himself introduced this quaint choir at Clemenza or inherited them is not specified. But the latter consideration is an important one in the light of Pirelli's latervituperatio by the bourgeois “guardians of morality.”
Huysmans, as ex-Naturalist, emphaiszed the genune horror involved in acquiring the status of Saint, inSte. Lydwine de Schiedam (1901). In connection with contemporary hagiography, he wrote that it was “une branche maintenant perdue de l'art; il en était d'elle ainsi que de la sculpture sur bois et des miniatures dex vieux missels ... pour extraire le charme des légendes, il fallait la langue naïve des siécles révolus, le verbe ingénu des âges morts,” InEn Route (Paris: Plon, 1913), 31.
Herbert Kech,Hagiographie als christliche Unterhaltungsliteratur, Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik, No. 225 (Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1977), 117.
Lourdes, 35, 184, 281.
Nigger, 105–6.
Pirelli, 328, andFlower, 88.
“L'Art moderne,” (1883) inŒuvres complètes, Vol. 6, 95.
Ibid. “L'Art moderne,” (1883) inŒuvres complètes, Vol. 6, 95.
Namely, a sculpted “ronde d'anges qui ... dansent, en l'honneur de la Vierge, un immobile rigaudon de marbre,” in the Paris Madeleine church. InEn Route, 18.
What Huysmans took to be authentic plainchant was actually an adaptation of original Greco-roman music to liturgical needs, as it was sung for instance in the Basilica of St. Peter under Gregory the Great. Margaret Deanesley,A History of the Medieval Church, 590–1500 (London: Methuen, 1969), 27.
InA Rebours, for example, des Esseintes studies El Greco's “Christ aux teintes singulières—d'un dessein exagéré, d'une couleur féroce, d'une énergie détraquée ... aux tons de cirage et de vert cadavre.”Œuvres complètes, 87–7.
Nigger, 114 andPirelli, 313. These descriptions are not only Baroque but also “modernist” for reminding us that a painting essentially consists of paint.
L Cathédrale, 265.
Lourdes, 174.
La Cathédrale, 16.
His flamboyant Spanish Virgin is decked out “as though bound for the Bull-ring.”Pirelli, 333.
Pirelli, 249.
Valmouth, 169. Also fashionable is a “loose, shapeless gown ... draped from the head à l'Evangile.”Valmouth, 165.
As in Lourdes, where Huysmans with horror beholds “deux sœurs colossalement riches, qui avaient, il y a de cela cinq ans, fait le vœu, le jour de la fête de saînt Benoît Labre, de vivre comme lui, dans un linceul de crasse; toutes deux, en haillons, sous leurs robes, se dispensaient de jamais se déshabiller et se laver.”Lourdes, 227.
Pirelli, 298.
Le Lys rouge (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1913).
Pirelli, 305.
Pirelli, 304.
J.-A. Kiechler,The Butterfly's Freckled Wings, Swiss Studies in English, No. 60 (Bern: Francke, 1969), 14–28.
Like the “two fresh eggs in a blue paper bag” on the table in Sister Ursula's otherwise austere cell.Flower, 92.
James Laver,The First Decadent (New York: Citadel Press, 1955), 53.
Le Lys rouge, (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1913). 184.
Anatole France,L'Ile des Pingouins (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1903), 316–17.
Anatole France, “L'Etui de Nacre” Gestas” inŒuvres complètes illustrées (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1925), vol. 5, 334.
Flower, 29.
Nostradamus and Picpus appear inFlower, Père Ernest inValmouth.
Pirelli, 312.
Pirelli, 300.
Huysmans calls the wordly priests who “lower themselves” to these activities “imbéciles” and “abjects.” Fernande Zayed,Huysmans, peintre de son époque (Paris: Nizet, 1973), 469–70, 480.
Although at the same time the Beardsleyan and the eighteenth-century (Gothic) elements become stronger, there is no evidence that the priests themselves also become increasingly decadent and corrupt, as Edward Potoker mistakenly suggests inRonald Firbank Columbia Essays on modern writers, No. 43 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), 10.
Pirelli, 319.
En Route, 93.
Pirelli, 328.
Pirelli, 323.
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Aercke, K.P. Two decadents' fragrant prayers. Neohelicon 15, 263–274 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02089752
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02089752