SOURCE: "Cults of Sex and Beauty: Gautier, Baudelaire, andHuysmans," in Sexual P ersonae: Art andDecadence from Nef ertiti to Emily Dickinson, Yale University Press, 1990, pp. 408-38.

In the following excerpt, Paglia views Huysmans, Charles Baudelaire, and Théophile Gautier as the three principal French authors whose works defined characteristically Decadent ideals of eroticism and physical beauty.

Joris-Karl Huysmans' novel A Rebours (1884) expands the Decadent innovations of Balzac, Gautier, Poe, and Baudelaire. The title means "against nature" or "against the grain." Des Esseintes, the epicene hero, is product of an incest-degenerated aristocratic line, like Poe's Usher. Romantic solipsism contracts to its ultimate Decadent closure. Renouncing social relationships, Des Esseintes withdraws into the self-embowered world of his ornate mansion. Surrounded by curios and art works, he is like a Pharaoh entombed with his possessions. He is both priest and idol of his own cult. But his dream of perfect freedom...