Masqued in decadence : Wildean dandyism and the fin-de-siecle

Abstract

'Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. ' Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) was obsessed with, among other things, masks; as there is truth in the observation that only when someone is wearing a mask, can he express his real self. Truth and illusion, nature and artifice, beauty and decay - these were all aspects of life tackled during that period known as the fin-de-siecle. Called 'decadent' by some, considered liberating by others, during this period French culture and literature together with the British idea of aestheticism formed that magnificent creature - the dandy - who, poised between honest satire and mock intellectualism, was the figure who not only served as a bridge between the ranks of the aristocrats and the artists, but who also, through his marked superficiality, mirrored society's own hypocrisy and unacknowledged ennui. Spurred on by a reaction against restraining Victorianism, as well as the emergence of the Gothic and the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, the decadent movement became an umbrella term for all those artists and characters who at the turn of the 19th century, embraced the notion of l'art pour l'art illustrated by Gautier. These fin-de-siecle ai tists were defined not just by thei1 'fleshiness' but by a strong will to defy boundaries and taboos in order to unmask what was already there; thinly veiled by society's veneer but apparent only to those who dared to look beyond the illusion of conformity - the end of the Victorian era and the beginning of 'modern' thought as a precursor to ideas like existentialism stemming from Nietzschean nihilism. In my dissertation, I wish to peruse that refinement and pungent wit and daring which disguised a much deeper and troubled complexity. French writers like Charles Baudelaire, J.K Huysmans, Arthur Rimbaud and Stephane Mallarme changed English literature and art forever through their influence of monumental artists like Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater, Aubrey Beardsley, Arthur Symons, Algernon Swinburne, the members of the Rhymer's club and many others. In the end- all that is born and flourishes must decay. Thefin-de-siecle exposed the idea that beauty can be found in ugliness and highlighted the importance of subjectivity, while Wildean dandyism was a movement which not only transformed French decadence into British aestheticism, but one which shed light on a whole new way of perceiving reality. Caught between atrocious aphorisms and delightful contradictions, it exemplifies human nature in all its putrid hothouse glory.