The Dandies of the 1920's have long captured the romantic and artisitc imagination, in this academic essay I explore the function of the Dandy to an understanding of the decadent literature of the fin-de-siècle period.

The fin-de-siècle period was one in which Dandyism could flourish. Jules Barbey D’Aurevilly, a writer who was influential on Decadent artists, and one of the early Dandy figures regarded ‘Dandyism as a complete theory of life which springs from the unending struggle between propriety and boredom in a declining society’ (Beckson 1998: 59) The fin-de-siècle Decadent period is defined as a declining society and in the literature of this time we find examples of characters whose life ideology is consumed by their own aristocratic notions, a sense of ennui and repulsion for the rest of society. In the examples of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) and Joris- Karl Huysmans’ Against Nature (1884) the fascinating and eccentric Dandy characters are given centre stage and function to demonstrate the degradation and detachment from a society in flux by those in an aristocratic position. Dandy’s are, as Charles Baudelaire describes, who wrote academically on the subject of the Dandy in The Painter of Modern Life (1863) ‘the last burst of heroism in the midst of Decadence’ (28).  This definition goes some way to explain the lavish and flamboyant nature of the Dandiacal characters of Dorian Gray, Lord Henry Wooton and Jean Des Esseintes, amongst many more Dandy characters which were constructed in the fin-de-siècle period alongside the real life Dandies such as Oscar Wilde and Charles Baudelaire.

Rising in the period of revolutionary Europe, Dandyism located itself in the centre of a political and ideological flux, as Baudelaire writes in The Painter of Modern Life ‘The Dandy’ (1995)

‘Dandyism is especially likely to appear in those transitional ages in which democracy is not yet all-powerful and the aristocracy is only partially faltering and debased. In the confusion of such times certain men, déclassé, disgusted, idle, but all endowed with native strength, may conceive the project of founding a new kind of aristocracy, which will be all the more difficult to destroy as it will be based on the most precious and indestructible faculties, and on the God-given gifts which work and wealth cannot bestow.’ (28)

Baudelaire indicates that Dandyism rises as a result of a weakness in democracy and the faltering of the aristocracy. The Decadent writers were writing in the wake of revolutions across Europe, including the 1848 revolution in France which ended the Orleans Monarchy. The Italian revolutions which also climaxed in 1848 where various states in Italy demanded to be granted a constitution, which King Ferdinand conceded to and led the way for the unification of Italy as one country as opposed to several differing states. What these revolutionary acts create is a climate where the aristocratic power across Europe was in trouble, their power being challenged and their status beginning to decline, however, democratic power was by no means certain. Young men saw this absence of absolute power as an opportunity to begin a new kind of aristocracy.

James Laver in his book Dandies (1968) wrote that ‘The doctrine of “art for art’s sake”, the repudiation of moral and utilitarian values, inevitably brought back an admiration for the dandy, who does not do anything useful but is content to “exist beautifully”. In fact the whole fin de siècle attitude implied a Dandiacal pose’ (100). Therefore, the fin-de-siècle period defined in Decadence as a degrading and that in this decadence it was better to go out with one last flourish. The Dandy is not a part of or a conformist to society; due to their aristocratic status and money they are at liberty to pursue their own pleasures in leisure, culture and in the performance of the self.

Oscar Wilde is one of the most famous Dandy figures, and he constructs the character of the Dandy into many of his plays and specifically into his only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. One of Wilde’s famous aphorisms which can be found in An Ideal Husband (1983) spoken by the witty Dandy figure of Lord Arthur Goring: ‘To fall in love with one’s self is to begin a lifelong romance.’(Act III Scene I line 17), this mirrors the ‘cult of the self’ (Baudelaire 1995:27), the egocentricity and narcissism which define Dandyism. In Who is a Dandy? (2002) George Walden explains that ‘Dandyism is defined as vanity, frivolity, hedonism, a preoccupation with externals and above all a posture of ironic detachment from the world, such vices or virtues will persist through social and political change’(35). Wilde lived through the period of social and political reforms across Europe, in England and was outspoken concerning the issue of Irish Nationalism, however, what his literature conveys is often boredom with politics and society.

The preoccupation with the external appearance and for fashion and clothing has been interpreted by Aileen Ribeiro, in "On Englishness in dress" (2002) as a political statement in itself, as she makes the link between clothing, with political protest as an English characteristic during the 18th century. Given these connotations, Dandyism can be seen as an act of protest against the social reforms which came in the wake of revolutions across Europe, ones which gave more rights to lower class people.  This thought reappears as voiced by Lord Goring, in An Ideal Husband: ‘Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear. Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself.’ (Act III Scene II line 7-8) To be fashionable was of high importance but to separate oneself from the rest of society was also of utmost importance for the Dandy.

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, the protagonist, Dorian, is impressed and influenced by the Dandy character Lord Henry Wooton who informs Dorian that to be young and beautiful is really the only thing of any  use and that Dorian is the most fortunate person to have both youth and beauty. The Picture of Dorian Gray makes direct reference to Dandyism stating:

‘Fashion, by which what is really fantastic becomes for a moment universal, and Dandyism, which, in its own way, is an attempt to assert the absolute modernity of beauty, had, of course, their fascination for him [Dorian]’(150).

Both Lord Henry Wotton and Dorian Gray embody the qualities of Dandyism, having money at their disposal and a heavy sense of ennui, they go about their lives pursuing pleasures in literature and theatre. Dorian’s narcissism leads him into a life of debauchery and immorality but he at all times maintains an appearance of aristocracy and beauty.

Commenting on Lady Agatha’s attempts at philanthropy and appealing to her rich friends to entertain those who are disadvantaged in Whitechapel and the East End by donating money and performing, Lord Henry is most critical. He says at the dinner party:

‘I can sympathise with everything except suffering,’ said Lord Henry, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I cannot sympathise with that. It is too ugly, too horrible, too distressing. There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathise with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life’s sores the better.’ (50)

This verbalises the disinterest with the rest of society, especially the bourgeoisie masses that were challenging aristocratic power and pushing for democracy, a symptom of society which was new to the modern world. What Lord Henry wants to focus on is the beautiful but the meaningless, therefore avoiding political or social debate and enjoying instead the fleeting pleasure of the age, which is what Dorian follows the example of and embraces to the full extent possible.

In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Dorian becomes obsessed with a book given to him by Lord Henry, he explains it has follows:

 ‘It was a novel without a plot, and with only one character, being, indeed, simply a psychological study of a certain young Parisian, who spent his life trying to realise in the nineteenth century all the passions and modes of thought that belonged to every century except his own, and to sum up, as it were,  in himself the various moods thought which the world-spirit had ever passed, loving for their mere artificiality those renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue, as much as those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin. [...] One hardly knew at times whether one was reading spiritual ecstasies of some mediaeval saint or the morbid confessions of a modern sinner. It was a poisonous book.  [...] For years, Dorian Gray could not free himself from the influence of this book […] The hero, the wonderful young Parisian, in whom the romantic and the scientific temperaments were so strangely blended, became to him a kind of prefiguring type of himself. And, indeed the whole book seemed to him to contain the story of his own life, written before he had lived it.’ (145-7)

 

This book, which Dorian views as a guide to how he wishes to live his life and embodies the cult of the self, and which is not named in The Picture of Dorian Gray has been assumed by many critics, and understandably so, to be Joris-Karl Huysman’s Against Nature. In Against Nature, the protagonist Jean Des Esseintes rejects bourgeoisie society and other people, to create his own extravagant and eccentric world within the four walls of his home and pursuing a life of intellectual and aesthetic contemplation. Describing his feelings towards society before he makes his break from it and begins his solitary existence, Des Esseintes explains:

‘During the final months of his stay in Paris, when, having lost faith in everything […] during that period the touch of a human form, brushed against in the street, had been one of the most excruciating torments […] Lastly, he loathed with all the intensity of which he was capable the rising generations, those new classes of dreadful louts who feel the need to talk and laugh loudly in restaurants and coffee houses.’ (22)

This extract demonstrates the repulsion for public life by Des Esseintes and his motivation for locking himself away from the rest of the world, to explore the indulgence of the senses in perfumery, home décor, literature, cuisine and music, each of which subjects are given lengthy and comprehensive description in their own chapters in the book. For Des Esseintes the only thing worth pursuing are his own whims and he takes explicit care to avoid interacting with others.

At the end of the text Des Esseintes is forced to return to Paris due to his erratic lifestyle, and the closing chapters are a railing against common society in which the aristocracy is in decline ‘After the Aristocracy of birth, it was now the aristocracy of money’(179) commenting on a rise in capitalism and the rising working classes. On the stupidity of the masses, he says: ‘More villainous, more vile than the despoiled nobility and the clergy in its decline, the bourgeoisie was borrowing their pointless ostentation and their obsolete arrogance, which it debased with their lack of good breeding’ (179). Des Esseintes shares and furthers the vehemence and disdain preached by Lord Wooton in The Picture of Dorian Gray, preferring a solitary existence to any interaction with society.

Des Esseintes exclaims: ‘To think that I will be rejoining the depraved and servile rabble of this age!’ (180). Des Esseintes compares having to rejoin society as an atheist who attempts to embrace religion, hinting back to the idea of the Dandy as the cult of the self, Des Esseintes has made his religion in the worship of the self and in the pursuit of pleasures, the house which he has constructed is the religious building at which he worships.

Dandyism can therefore be seen as hedonistic, frivolous and a pursuit in vacuous, fleeting pleasures, but what these texts and theoretical writings demonstrate is that the Dandy functions as a comment on the decadence of society. By playing on the homonym of decadence, the Decadence of the Dandy is overly luxurious and self-indulgent but this type of decadence is a reaction to the decadence of society and of the time which is in a moral and political decline.