Touch
Unfeeling Decadence
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23562805 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jane Desmarais (English and Creative Writing, Goldsmiths, University of London), Jane H Desmarais (Goldsmiths University of London, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Pages | 562-580 |
| Publication date | 2021-10-13 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | CHAPTER |
| Venue | Oxford Handbook of Decadence (SOURCE_BOOK) |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190066956.013.24 |
| OpenAlex | W4238426919 |
| ISBN | 9780190066956 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 2 |
This article explores the representation of touch in a selection of naturalist and decadent novels in the contexts of late nineteenth-century consumerism and widespread fears about contamination from sexually transmitted disease, principally syphilis. It argues that while the tangible material world does matter to decadence (Émile Zola), touching the (female) body engenders fear and disgust that often leads to fragmentation, unfeeling, and aversion (J.-K. Huysmans). Touching the body or body part, if touching occurs at all, is often portrayed as a transgressive and dangerous act that threatens to contaminate and corrupt (Rachilde, Octave Mirbeau). In Gabriele D’Annunzio’s Il piacere (Pleasure, 1889), a novel that explores the themes of beauty and desire, touch is invoked at least as much as the other senses and is at times foregrounded in the haptoglyphic and synecdochic imagery of hands and fingers, but the tactile act serves only to emphasize what cannot be possessed and the pleasure and pain of touching too much.
Aesthetics · Art · Beauty · Decadence · Disgust · Immorality · Literature · Morality · Pleasure · Decadence, Literature, and Society · French Literature and Criticism · Historical and Scientific Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |