Baudelaire, Huysmans, Swinburne, Rimbaud, Wilde, Dowson, Schwob, Mirbeau, Poe, Sterling and a dozen other literary chefs are featured in this Dedalus Black Feast. Also, for an aesthetic appetizer there’s a most informative and insightful essay on the philosophy of Decadence penned by Brian Stableford, one of our foremost scholars of 19th century French and English literature. For a Black Feast sample, here are my comments on selections included from three of my all-time favorite authors:

The Vanquished Shadow by Catulle Mendès

A sickly, pint-sized, prematurely aged hatmaker by trade, owner of a clothing store, staunch member of the bourgeoisie, faithful husband and proud, loving father of two sons and a daughter, forever meticulous and methodical in all of his business and personal dealings, is writing a letter to the Chaplain for Prison of La Roquette, one of the main prisons in Paris, for a very specific reason: he is scheduled to be executed by guillotine the very next morning for the murder of the people he has always loved and adored – his wife, sons and daughter. Of course, society judges his murders a heinous crime but in his own mind, as he details in his letter, his action was not only honorable and courageous but absolutely necessary for the benefit of all life on the planet, since, as he explains, his head has no shadow. Does Catulle Mendès’ narrator sound just a touch mad? In the tradition of these French Decadents, violence and the criminal are never far removed from a first-person male narrator repeatedly claiming he is not mad. Love this wildly romantic, larger-than-life Catulle - decadence with such a light, playful touch.

And here are several notable features of this tale that make it particularly memorable: Catulle Mendès anticipates the phenomenon we all have become painfully aware of courtesy of the newspapers and the mass media - the way in which an ordinary, decent, straightforward, upstanding member of society can also be a serial killer; the first-person narrator delineates his worldview with himself as the key player in unraveling the meaning of life and thus the rational for his actions; this hatmaker also relates that he had a schoolteacher who read aloud books concerning death and eternity and how he became terrified listening to this schoolmaster, a schoolmaster who was later deemed a little mad and asked to resign. Ah, the influence of early education! And, lastly, the narrator’s initial realization that his head casts no shadow happens at exactly the same time of his first kiss. Perhaps it is his experience in writing dozens of charming fables or his sense of subtle irony in portraying the decadent sensibility, but whatever the reason, the author’s treatment of dark subject matter is anything but dark or heavy. What an absolute delight to read.

Catulle Mendes -- Photograph of the poet as an angelic young man.

Funeral Oration by Jean Lorrain

The narrator attends the funeral of his friend Jacques, a friend not only in his adult years in Paris but also a childhood friend when they both grew up back in a small coastal village. After the burial service in the snow-covered graveyard reminding the narrator of a swans-down coverlet, as those in attendance depart, he is obliged to listen to the cloying hypocrisy from one of Jacques’ Parisian acquaintances and the even more cloying and hypocritical words from one of Jacques’ mistresses. This mind-numbing drivel prompts him to reflect on the bizarre lifestyle and lethal habits of his fellow night-prowlers, including Jacques and the true love of Jacques’ life: Suzanne.

In his rumination he returns to one telling scene where he witnessed what must have been the true reason for both the death of Suzanne some weeks prior and the death of Jacques: “The restorative which Suzanne had poured into him was simply ether, that ether which never lets go, and which, six months later – by which time she fully deserved the name of etheromaniac – had put an end to her life. Now I can see her, standing there enfolded by her black domino, pouring poison into her lover, the act making a tragic and horrific mockery of the gesture which she made with the other hand, readjusting her mask of green satin. But at the time, I did not see her thus: Suzanne seemed then to be a fantasy of a different kind, the creation of that mask of pale green satin, which matched the delicate shade of her sleeves and the ribbons of her domino.”

Jean Lorrain -- Parisian aesthete and decadent, par excellence.

Péhor by Remy de Gourmont

The sensitive twelve-year old Douceline was a young girl who delighted in her sensations and feelings, especially the sensations of her own body. All would be well if she lived in a culture respecting the body and honoring sensations and feelings but, alas, she is not; she is living in church dominated 19th century France and her feelings and sensations come into sharp conflict with religion and religious images - not only the more tradition Christian images but also the spirit of Péhor, god of the Midianites, one of the deities worshiped by rival tribes of the Children of Israel.

This short story is vintage Remy de Gourmont, an author with one prime subject when he wrote his novels and short stories: sex. And, on a personal note, de Gourmont had plenty of time to write his fiction since he became a self-exiled recluse living in a Paris apartment after a rare skin disease ravaged his face in his early thirties. In the tradition of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, he was one of the leading philosophic voices of his day, a thinker, aesthetician and novelist that is unfortunately all but forgotten in our current-day.

Incidentally, in my own modest way I attempt to follow Remy de Gourmont's approach to literature: addressing not only the work itself but also underlying ideas and philosophical context.






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Baudelaire, Huysmans, Swinburne, Rimbaud, Wilde, Dowson, Schwob, Mirbeau, Poe, Sterling and a dozen other literary chefs are featured in this Dedalus Black Feast. Also, for an aesthetic appetizer there’s a most informative and insightful essay on the philosophy of Decadence penned by Brian Stableford, one of our foremost scholars of 19th century French and English literature. For a Black Feast sample, here are my comments on selections included from three of my all-time favorite authors:

The Vanquished Shadow by Catulle Mendès

A sickly, pint-sized, prematurely aged hatmaker by trade, owner of a clothing store, staunch member of the bourgeoisie, faithful husband and proud, loving father of two sons and a daughter, forever meticulous and methodical in all of his business and personal dealings, is writing a letter to the Chaplain for Prison of La Roquette, one of the main prisons in Paris, for a very specific reason: he is scheduled to be executed by guillotine the very next morning for the murder of the people he has always loved and adored – his wife, sons and daughter. Of course, society judges his murders a heinous crime but in his own mind, as he details in his letter, his action was not only honorable and courageous but absolutely necessary for the benefit of all life on the planet, since, as he explains, his head has no shadow. Does Catulle Mendès’ narrator sound just a touch mad? In the tradition of these French Decadents, violence and the criminal are never far removed from a first-person male narrator repeatedly claiming he is not mad. Love this wildly romantic, larger-than-life Catulle - decadence with such a light, playful touch.

And here are several notable features of this tale that make it particularly memorable: Catulle Mendès anticipates the phenomenon we all have become painfully aware of courtesy of the newspapers and the mass media - the way in which an ordinary, decent, straightforward, upstanding member of society can also be a serial killer; the first-person narrator delineates his worldview with himself as the key player in unraveling the meaning of life and thus the rational for his actions; this hatmaker also relates that he had a schoolteacher who read aloud books concerning death and eternity and how he became terrified listening to this schoolmaster, a schoolmaster who was later deemed a little mad and asked to resign. Ah, the influence of early education! And, lastly, the narrator’s initial realization that his head casts no shadow happens at exactly the same time of his first kiss. Perhaps it is his experience in writing dozens of charming fables or his sense of subtle irony in portraying the decadent sensibility, but whatever the reason, the author’s treatment of dark subject matter is anything but dark or heavy. What an absolute delight to read.

Catulle Mendes -- Photograph of the poet as an angelic young man.

Funeral Oration by Jean Lorrain

The narrator attends the funeral of his friend Jacques, a friend not only in his adult years in Paris but also a childhood friend when they both grew up back in a small coastal village. After the burial service in the snow-covered graveyard reminding the narrator of a swans-down coverlet, as those in attendance depart, he is obliged to listen to the cloying hypocrisy from one of Jacques’ Parisian acquaintances and the even more cloying and hypocritical words from one of Jacques’ mistresses. This mind-numbing drivel prompts him to reflect on the bizarre lifestyle and lethal habits of his fellow night-prowlers, including Jacques and the true love of Jacques’ life: Suzanne.

In his rumination he returns to one telling scene where he witnessed what must have been the true reason for both the death of Suzanne some weeks prior and the death of Jacques: “The restorative which Suzanne had poured into him was simply ether, that ether which never lets go, and which, six months later – by which time she fully deserved the name of etheromaniac – had put an end to her life. Now I can see her, standing there enfolded by her black domino, pouring poison into her lover, the act making a tragic and horrific mockery of the gesture which she made with the other hand, readjusting her mask of green satin. But at the time, I did not see her thus: Suzanne seemed then to be a fantasy of a different kind, the creation of that mask of pale green satin, which matched the delicate shade of her sleeves and the ribbons of her domino.”

Jean Lorrain -- Parisian aesthete and decadent, par excellence.

Péhor by Remy de Gourmont

The sensitive twelve-year old Douceline was a young girl who delighted in her sensations and feelings, especially the sensations of her own body. All would be well if she lived in a culture respecting the body and honoring sensations and feelings but, alas, she is not; she is living in church dominated 19th century France and her feelings and sensations come into sharp conflict with religion and religious images - not only the more tradition Christian images but also the spirit of Péhor, god of the Midianites, one of the deities worshiped by rival tribes of the Children of Israel.

This short story is vintage Remy de Gourmont, an author with one prime subject when he wrote his novels and short stories: sex. And, on a personal note, de Gourmont had plenty of time to write his fiction since he became a self-exiled recluse living in a Paris apartment after a rare skin disease ravaged his face in his early thirties. In the tradition of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, he was one of the leading philosophic voices of his day, a thinker, aesthetician and novelist that is unfortunately all but forgotten in our current-day.

Incidentally, in my own modest way I attempt to follow Remy de Gourmont's approach to literature: addressing not only the work itself but also underlying ideas and philosophical context.






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Though a wonderful selection of writers and stories - these are neither so rare nor so exquisite that you should think of paying what the venal secondhand sharpies on Amazon, etc., are asking for this slight and non-archival collation. ( )