{{Against Nature}}

Basic Info

• Author: Joris-Karl Huysmans
• Year:
• Type: primary / secondary / theory-adjacent

Summary (brief)

-Jean Des Esseintes retreats from society to an isolated villa to indulge his extreme aesthetic tastes in art, literature, and sensory experiences, rejecting the vulgarity of modern life; focused on inner world, obsessions with things,

Major Themes

• #interiority
• #trans-corporeality
• #monstrous-landscape
• #monstrous-landscape

Key Passages / Quotes

Quote 1

#quote

quote:: “I am no bird.”
page:: 197
themes:: freedom, identity

Genre Notes

-Seminal work of decadent literature; fin-de-siecle novel; Symbolist movement; catalogue

Characters / Concepts (if relevant)

Theory Connections

Related Texts

• Dorian Gray

My Argument / Interpretation

-Jean De Esseintes lives in a monster house full of junk, including a diamond encrusted gilded tortoise he wants to keep as a moving decoration but its actually an animal that he neglects so it dies. This guy gets very sick and I think the evil in the house just gets ito him.

Dissertation Relevance

How could this matter to my project?

Critical Questions