Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2020
Abstract
The case study focuses on France fin de siècle and demonstrates to which extent Decadents, starting from a tactical reversal of the stigmas attached to them (they are described by critics and rival writers as a strange or disgusting animal species), end up developing their new and provocative poetics precisely around the repugnant fauna to which they were compared, using species differences also to conceptualize social and gender issues. Moreover, the chapter suggests that, at the turn of the century, these "literary disputes" might turn out to have some links to the Decadent's actual involvement in the animal cause.