Antropotecnias "fin de siècle"la subjetividad decadente de Jean Floressas des Esseintes

Résumé

The novel À Rebours (Against the Grain or Against Nature) was published by Joris-Karl Huysmans in 1884, and is considered by many as the Bible of nineteenth-century decadence. It collects not only numerous topics about the artistic and cultural fin-de-siècle, but also describes a set of techniques that its protagonist, the Duke Jean Floressas des Esseintes, meticulously develops to cultivate his own self and to aestheticise to the extreme his life and environment. Des Esseintes bought a tenement in which to withdraw from the world and to engage in individual aesthetic joy. His entire life revolved around the production of refined aesthetic and emotional experiences, so all decorative and household objects had a purpose related to the cultivation of subjectivity. To this end, he implemented various technologies that not only affected his home, but also his food, clothing, and daily activities. Huysmans's character is representative of a figure of the subjectivity of the fin-de-siècle Europe. His behaviour is typical of nineteenth-century dandies, who conceived their way of life as a discipline of body and soul, a true ascetic. The novel defines one of the many profiles that human subjectivity has acquired in the course of its historiogenesis. The aim of this paper is to analyse the technologies of the self that Des Esseintes employed, relating them to their socio-cultural context and the new psychological knowledge and practices of the time.