(Minor Field) Dandyism in 19th-century French and British Literature

RATIONALE In this field, I will analyze a set of diverse texts French and British novels and essays, ranging from the canonical to the ephemeral which are joined together by their shared focus on the figure of the dandy. The main goal of this comparative field is to historicize the phenomenon of dandyism. Because dandyism exalts the values of aesthetic autonomy and individual "personality," nineteenth century theorists of dandyism often portrayed the dandy as a trans historical, timeless phenomenon. In Baudelaire's still influential formulation: "dandyism is the last shimmer of the heroic in times of decadence." This claim belies the specific genesis of dandyism as an export from a commercially dominant 1820's Britain into the literary culture of post Napoleonic France. In taking a historical approach to dandyism, I hope to problematize some common assumptions in contemporary works of literary criticism and gender studies, which (like Baudelaire) often treat dandyism as a coherent phenomenon that may be discovered in dissident masculine identities, regardless of time and place (see, for instance, the readings by Adams and Meisel, below). In contrast, my primary reading list follows a historical itinerary laid out by Ellen Moers in her 1960 work The Dandy: I am tracing the changing configurations of dandyism as the idea of the dandy moves back and forth between Britain and France, and between "high" and "low" literature, during the course of the nineteenth century. However, at the same time, I am attempting to rethink Moers' relatively untheorized historical narrative in terms offered by more recent scholarly paradigms particularly the study of nineteenth century commodity culture (Gagnier and Miller) and nineteenth century sexuality (Sedgwick and Sinfield). My two primary questions are: (1) where does dandyism fit into (or rebel against) the nineteenth century class structure?; and (2) when and how did dandyism become identified with homosexuality? As Alan Sinfield shows in The Wilde Century, the Wildean image which indissolubly links homosexuality, effeminacy, and "aristocratic" dandyism is a specifically 1890's phenomenon, which may not be recognizable in earlier nineteenth century conceptions of dandyism or of dissident sexuality. In my field on dandyism, I hope to investigate the class, gender, and sexual implications of dandyism as they existed before the watershed moment of the Wilde trials and after.

SELECTED CRITICAL READINGS: —  James Eli Adams, Dandies and Desert Saints: Styles of Victorian Manhood —  Walter Benjamin, Paris: the Capital of the Nineteenth Century; The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire; "Some Motifs in Baudelaire" —  Peter Brooks, Body Work: Objects of Desire in Modern Narrative —  Regina Gagnier, Idylls of the Marketplace: Oscar Wilde and the Victorian Public —  Rhonda Garelick, Rising Star: Dandyism, Gender, and Performance in the Fin de Siecle —  Anne Hollander, Seeing through Clothes; Sex and Suits —  Joseph Litvak, Strange Gourmets: Sophistication, Theory and the Novel —  Perry Meisel, The Cowboy and the Dandy: Crossing over from Romanticism to Rock and Roll —  Andrew Miller, Novels Behind Glass: Commodity Culture and Victorian Narrative —  Ellen Moers, The Dandy: Brummell to Beerbohm —  Eve Sedgwick, Epistemology of the Closet —  Alan Sinfield, The Wilde Century: Effeminacy, Oscar Wilde and the Queer Moment

PRIMARY READINGS FRENCH LITERATURE: Stendhal The Red and the Black Honore de Balzac Treatise on the Elegant Life (selections) Old Goriot The Girl with the Golden Eyes Lost Illusions Splendor and Misery of Courtesans Jules Barbey D'Aurevilly On Dandyism and George Brummell Charles Baudelaire The Painter of Modern Life Joris Karl Huysmans Against the Grain ENGLISH LITERATURE: Benjamin Disraeli Vivian Grey Coningsby Edward Bulwer Lytton Pelham: The Adventures of a Gentleman England and the English (selections) William Hazlitt Essays: "Dandy Novels"; "On Fashion"; "On Vulgarity and Affectation"; "On Familiar Style"; "Brummelliana" Thomas Carlyle "The Dandy School" (from Sartor Resartus) Catherine Gore Cecil: the Adventures of a Coxcomb William Makepeace Thackeray The Book of Snobs Vanity Fair Pendennis Essays: "On Tailoring"; "On Friendship"; "Plan for a Prize Novel"; "Jesse's Life of George Brummell"; "George the Fourth" Ellen Wood East Lynne Oscar Wilde The Picture of Dorian Gray An Ideal Husband The Importance of Being Earnest Essays: "The Critic as Artist"; "The Decay of Lying"; "The Truth of Masks;" "Pen, Pencil and Poison" Robert Hichens The Green Carnation Max Beerbohm Essays: "Dandies and Dandies"; "Defense of Cosmetics"; "George the Fourth"