The Dedalus Book of Decadence: (Moral Ruins) by Brian Stableford Read Free Book Online Page A

his day into paroxysms of triumphant delight with his eventual repentance of all his horrible sins; he delivered the most spectacular confession ever heard before going gladly to his death – and then, one presumes, to Heaven. The fact of his having been such a conscientious Decadent in his earlier days similarly enhanced the value of Huysmans’ conversion in the eyes of those who received him into the bosom of the Roman Church. Perhaps one should also recall, however, that Gibbon’s overview of the Decline and Fall of Rome saw the ancient empire’s conversion to Christianity merely as one more stage in its long decay. If we are to accept (on the evidence of its dubious pseudo-psychological underpinning) the conclusion that Decadence was really a species of silliness, we can hardly make out any better case for Catholicism. What Huysmans and Durtal – and all those who followed their example – mapped out was not really a road to salvation, but merely a path from frying pan to fire. On the other hand, it must remain a matter of opinion as to whether any of the other escapes from Decadent consciousness measured out by other writers were, in the end, any more satisfactory.
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    It was not religious faith but the attractions of a Symbolist movement shorn of Decadent pessimism and impuissance which were to provide a refuge for the majority of fair-weather Decadents who found the going too tough. Some critics have, indeed, suggested that there was little more involved in the displacement of Decadence by Symbolism than a change of name.
    Evidence to support this case includes the facts that Mallarmé’s reputation was substantially boosted by the revelation in À rebours that he was Des Esseintes’ favourite writer, and that Verlaine’s “Art poétique” (written in 1874 but not published until 1882) was adopted by the Symbolists as a key point of inspiration. Further evidence was supplied by the short-lived English Decadent Movement, whose promulgator Arthur Symons was quickly moved to protest, after the trial of Oscar Wilde, that it had really been a Symbolist Movement all along. In actuality, though, the two terms should by no means be regarded as synonyms; what the Symbolists inherited (or took) from the Decadents was style without substance. They were sympathetic to the Rimbaudian rational disordering of the senses and its careful avoidance of mundane description, but they were mostly uninterested in the anguish of the Decadents and its supportive apparatus of ideas.
    Mallarmé’s achievement in producing Symbolism to eclipse Decadence was in contriving, after some initial dithering, to discover that which the Decadents thought impossible: a new poetic Ideal and a new quasi-religious poetic mission. Though Mallarmé never actually produced the Grand Oeuvre about which he was always talking, it nevertheless sufficed as a hypothetical goal towards which all his work could be orientated. He lay down for his followers a manifesto for life and art which was less uncomfortable to follow and more attractive as an item of commitment. Mallarmé was, of course, a much happier man than Baudelaire, Rimbaud or Verlaine: he was more successful in love, and eventually succeded – as none of them had done – in providing himself with a good living and a sound reputation.
    As the protopsychological theories which had briefly dignified their excesses fell into decline, it is hardly surprising that all but the hardiest of the Decadents deflected their careers into more promising literary territory, accepting Mallarmé’s offer of renewed hope and revitalised significance. Nevertheless, the legacy of Decadence lingered at least until the end of the century, and its impact was not insignificant even upon the work of those writers who must be considered to have been on its periphery.
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5.
    FIN DE SIÉCLE:
THE DECADENCE OF DECADENCE
    Barbey d’Aurevilly was wrong, of course, to argue that the only possible escape