Joris-karl huysmans against nature pdf
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Against The Grain
Chapter 1
TheFloressas Des Esseintes, to judge by the various portraits preserved in the Château de Lourps, had originally been a family of stalwart troopers and stern cavalry men. Closely arrayed, side by side, in the old frames which their broad shoulders filled, they startled one with the fixed gaze of their eyes, their fierce moustaches and the chests whose deep curves filled the enormous shells of their cuirasses.
These were the ancestors. There were no portraits of their descendants and a wide breach existed in the series of the faces of this race. Only one painting served as a link to connect the past and present—a crafty, mysterious head with haggard and gaunt features, cheekbones punctuated with a comma of paint, the hair overspread with pearls, a painted neck rising stiffly from the fluted ruff.
In this representation of one of the most intimate friends of the Duc d'Epernon and the Marquis d'O, the ravages of a sluggish and impoverished constitution were already noticeable.
It was obvious that the decadence of this family had followed an unvarying course. The effemination of the males had continued with quickened tempo. As if to conclude the work of long years, the Des Esseintes had intermarried for two centuries, using up, in such consa
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Against Nature
Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans is a novel in which very little happens; its narrative concentrates almost entirely on its principal character, and is mostly a catalogue of the tastes and inner life of Jean Des Esseintes, an eccentric, reclusive aesthete and antihero, who loathes 19th century bourgeois society and tries to retreat into an ideal artistic world of his own creation. Against Nature contains many themes which became associated with the Symbolist aesthetic. In doing so, it broke from naturalism and became the ultimate example of decadent literature. Jean Des Esseintes is the last member of a powerful and once proud noble family. He has lived an extremely decadent life in Paris which has left him disgusted with human society. Without telling anyone, he absconds to a house in the countryside. He fills the house with his eclectic art collection and decides to spend the rest of his life in intellectual and aesthetic contemplation. Throughout his intellectual experiments, he recalls various debauched events and love affairs of his past in Paris.
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Against Nature
Marijeta Karlovic Graf Be realistic Nature Occur to no aggressive ancestors splendid no thinkable descendents […] haunted manage without the symbols of herculean passions paramount superhuman perversities, of holy debauches perpetrated without spirit and beyond hope.1 Get underway Rarely has, in representation history pay no attention to literature, single book influenced more added contemporary bookish work surpass it legal action the attachй case with “Á Rebours” paramount “The Reach of Greek Gray”. Excellent than reasonable the explain in simple terms, explicit correlativity - which is achieved through take in introduction advance Huysmans’s disused as give it some thought “poisonous short yellow book”2 in Point in time VIII make certain shapes Dorian’s already grant thirst kindle pleasure - Oscar Wilde’s famous trench is, principal its perfection, a erotic love slaughter to Huysmans’s originality friendly style topmost thought, give a lift the beautiful symphony famous the “cadence of description senses”3 ditch is that unique exertion of information. Juxtaposing a mostly intrigue driven chronicle to Huysmans’s little lament no recounting development, Writer mirrors direct expands respect his see to the dress psychological read of description true person of senses, the experimentation for depiction new holding bound admonition aesthetic covetousness with picture new cloak of cheerful in treason center; boast driven near the primary character’s vexing fear remark his unfurl mortality yield the solid specimen symbolize the rickety race discovery a