Dictionnaire du dandysme by Alain Montandon (review)

The Dictionnaire du dandysme is a new addition to this innovative series of reference works treating not only key authors and literary movements but also broad themes in French and francophone culture. The volume includes contributions from forty-six scholars, and seeks to provide its readers with what Alain Montandon calls a 'panorama synthétique' (p. 7) of dandyism. The volume is divided into four parts: 'Notions', 'Personnes', 'Attributs', and 'Personnages littéraires'. The first part includes entries on topics ranging from types of dandy to the cultural contexts of dandyism, and its emotional and moral economy. Unsurprisingly, George Brummell, Balzac, Barbey d'Aurevilly, and Baudelaire receive the most detailed individual studies, but there is also discussion of figures from other periods and national contexts: Paolo Mantegazza, Rachilde, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Serge Gainsbourg. This willingness to identify dandyism as a transnational and transhistorical concept is one of the most refreshing aspects of the volume: Isabelle Stauffer's article on the 'Femme dandy' ends, for example, with a discussion of contemporary performances by Drag Kings. Yet such inclusive readings of dandyism can also be problematic. Certain figures appear to have been selected for analysis on rather specious, or anecdotal, grounds: self-restraint and reserve in the case of Colette; provocative nonconformism and a taste for luxury in the case of Gainsbourg. This is not to say that these figures should not be included, but that more rigorous interrogation of the desire to construct them as dandies is needed. The third part reflects on the material signifiers of dandyism, discussing the cultural histories and symbolism of, for example, canes, cigars, and gloves. The 'personnages littéraires' analysed in Part Four range from specific protagonists, such as Balzac's Lucien de Rubempré, to the stock character of Pierrot. The volume is informative and wide-ranging; cumulatively, the entries evoke the tensions implicit in dandyism as a concept both theorized and practised; its precarious position between originality and uniformity; its ambiguous relationship with gender and sexuality; and its paradoxical forms of politicism. Many articles also make illuminating connections between canonical and popular source material. However, the variable quality and idiosyncrasies of the entries mean that its use as a reference tool is limited. A system of cross-referencing would have made the many overlaps between entries more useful, turning what at present read as unnecessary repetitions of identical anecdotes—the fantasy of the 'habit râpé', for instance (p. 12)—into more productive points of intersection. The linguistic phenomena surrounding dandyism might have been granted their own section; as it is, allusions to silence, irony, and 'l'impertinence verbale' (p. 50) remain dispersed across entries and under-developed. And while German and Italian scholars have made welcome contributions to the volume, it is disappointing not to see more reference to the important, and growing, body of anglophone scholarship on this subject.