Decadence

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, French, European, Nonfiction, Art & Architecture, General Art, Criticism
Cover of the book Decadence by Remy De Gourmont, Remy De Gourmont
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Remy De Gourmont ISBN: 9786050408324
Publisher: Remy De Gourmont Publication: August 26, 2015
Imprint: Language: English
Author: Remy De Gourmont
ISBN: 9786050408324
Publisher: Remy De Gourmont
Publication: August 26, 2015
Imprint:
Language: English

When, more than ten years ago, I wrote the first article on Remy de Gourmont which, so far as I know, appeared in America—North America, bien entendu, for the author of La Culture des Idées and Le Chemin de Velours was already well known and admired in such South American literary capitals as Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and La Plata—it was refused by one editor on the ground that he could not assume the responsibility of presenting a writer of Gourmont's dangerous, subversive, and immoral tendencies to the readers of his conservative and highly respectable journal. Gourmont's revenge—and mine—came a few years later when, at the time of his death, in 1915, the same paper paid him editorial tribute, recognizing the importance of the place he had occupied in the intellectual life of France for a quarter of a century.
What was this place precisely? An attempt has been made to define it by a recent French writer, M. Jules Sageret, who speaks of Gourmont as having represented in our time the encyclopédiste honnête homme of the eighteenth century, and this is sufficiently accurate, in spite of the fact that Gourmont was no deist, and that he made a much more extended application of that esprit critique which he inherited from Diderot and Voltaire. He himself notes the paradox presented by the latter, who, while combating the principle of authority so violently in one field—that of dogmatic theology—accepted it so absolutely and unquestioningly in another—that of poetic art, as stated once and for all by Boileau. Gourmont recognized no such limits of the critic's function. He was, in fact, a fearless, uncompromising, and universal free-thinker—libertin—who, endowed with a restless scientific curiosity, a profound irrespect, and an extraordinarily sharp and supple analytical intelligence, confronted all affirmations, all dogmas, in the fixed intent of liberating the life imprisoned in them.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

When, more than ten years ago, I wrote the first article on Remy de Gourmont which, so far as I know, appeared in America—North America, bien entendu, for the author of La Culture des Idées and Le Chemin de Velours was already well known and admired in such South American literary capitals as Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, and La Plata—it was refused by one editor on the ground that he could not assume the responsibility of presenting a writer of Gourmont's dangerous, subversive, and immoral tendencies to the readers of his conservative and highly respectable journal. Gourmont's revenge—and mine—came a few years later when, at the time of his death, in 1915, the same paper paid him editorial tribute, recognizing the importance of the place he had occupied in the intellectual life of France for a quarter of a century.
What was this place precisely? An attempt has been made to define it by a recent French writer, M. Jules Sageret, who speaks of Gourmont as having represented in our time the encyclopédiste honnête homme of the eighteenth century, and this is sufficiently accurate, in spite of the fact that Gourmont was no deist, and that he made a much more extended application of that esprit critique which he inherited from Diderot and Voltaire. He himself notes the paradox presented by the latter, who, while combating the principle of authority so violently in one field—that of dogmatic theology—accepted it so absolutely and unquestioningly in another—that of poetic art, as stated once and for all by Boileau. Gourmont recognized no such limits of the critic's function. He was, in fact, a fearless, uncompromising, and universal free-thinker—libertin—who, endowed with a restless scientific curiosity, a profound irrespect, and an extraordinarily sharp and supple analytical intelligence, confronted all affirmations, all dogmas, in the fixed intent of liberating the life imprisoned in them.

More books from Criticism

Cover of the book From Walden Pond to Jurassic Park by Remy De Gourmont
Cover of the book Parallel Lines by Remy De Gourmont
Cover of the book The Bible Study Handbook by Remy De Gourmont
Cover of the book Baruch Spinoza's Ethics by Remy De Gourmont
Cover of the book The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein by Remy De Gourmont
Cover of the book Women Writers of the Beat Era by Remy De Gourmont
Cover of the book Her Texas by Remy De Gourmont
Cover of the book Dream of the Red Chamber (Book II) by Remy De Gourmont
Cover of the book Lives of the Necromancers by Remy De Gourmont
Cover of the book Les Voyageurs en Orient et la Turquie depuis le traité de Paris by Remy De Gourmont
Cover of the book What Makes This Book So Great by Remy De Gourmont
Cover of the book The "Alexandreis" of Walter of Chatilon by Remy De Gourmont
Cover of the book Mr. Emerson's Revolution by Remy De Gourmont
Cover of the book The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary British and Irish Poetry by Remy De Gourmont
Cover of the book Towards a Twenty-First-Century Feminist Politics of Music by Remy De Gourmont
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy