Cahiers de littérature française, 7-8. Décadents méconnus (review)

A recurring concern for Decadent scholars is how to resurrect the unknown or forgotten writers that have helped to define the Decadent æsthetic. This issue of Cahiers de littérature française does just that. Edited by Guy Ducrey and Hélène Védrine, the eight essays in this collection each highlight the influential contributions of a respective Decadent writer or literary journal generally neglected by contemporary scholarship. With a common focus on the stylistic elements of Decadent literature or what Ducrey and Védrine refer to as the "fait de langue" (6) that characterizes Decadent poetics, the articles also provide valuable bibliographical resources intended to lead fin-de-siècle scholars down undiscovered paths.

Following Ducrey and Védrine's introduction, the collection opens with an article by Aurélia Cervoni dedicated to Henry J.-M. Levey's compilation of poetry, Le Pavillon ou la saison de Thomas W. Lance (also reproduced in full at the conclusion of the essay). Cervoni focuses on Levey's nearly incomprehensible use of neologisms, sentence fragments and unconventional subject/verb structure as exemplifying the Decadent privileging of the "esthétique du morcellement" (16). Maria Benedetta Collini is unsatisfied with previous studies centering primarily on Robert de Montesquiou's "dandy" lifestyle in Paris fin-de-siècle and argues for a new criticism that values his contributions to Decadent poetics. To demonstrate, she provides attentive readings of Montesquiou's use of mythology in his poetry through three different axes: the "jeu combinatoire," or grouping of various fragmented myths, the Decadent artifice and femme fatale, and artistic and literary ekphrasis.

Mariagiulia Longhi's article on Octave Uzanne identifies three main disciplines in which he has been given recent consideration: literature, art history and publishing/bookmaking. She insists, however, on his collaborative work as an editor of various anthologies and journals while also locating the articulation of his poetics in the subtitles, prefaces, introductions and footnotes of his larger works. Simonetta Valenti examines two novels by Camille Mauclair—Le Soleil des morts (1898) and La Ville-Lumière (1904)—that exemplify the Decadent preoccupation with literary and artistic crises at the fin de siècle. After considering the failed artist's quest for an æsthetic ideal in a society of moral decline, Valenti concludes that for Mauclair the final embrace of socialism represents an unprecedented hope for the Decadents.

Jean de Palacio reads Dubut de Laforest's scandalous Le Gaga and other works against a backdrop of scientific preoccupations with degeneration and pathology. Referencing influential fin-de-siècle doctors such as Charoct and Lombroso, Palacio argues that Laforest's œuvre at times blurs the lines between fiction and clinical case studies. Similarly, Nathalie Prince studies Gaston Danville's celebration of science and the influence that he argues it should play in fiction. Not unlike Zola, Danville insists that fiction should be based on objective, scientific facts, placing him at odds with many of his Symbolist peers of the time. He does not stray completely from Decadence, however, and Prince nuances his theoretical approach and its contradictions through his privileging of language and an evolved "mysticism" of the pathological self. In the only article of the collection to feature a female writer, Guy Ducrey examines Jane de la Vaudère's transition from Naturalism to Decadence as evidenced by the often graphic portrayals of medicine and blood in her novels. As does Nathalie Prince, Ducrey equally considers the value that Vaudère places on the occult, most notably in opposition to the limits and failures of traditional science and knowledge.

The collection appropriately ends with an article by Olivier Bivort dedicated to the literary periodical Lutèce (1882-1886) and its contributions to a burgeoning modernist literature. Despite its ostensible resistance to the emerging Decadent movement, this weekly publication ironically introduced to the public the works of those who would eventually become most...