Christa Giles

108
réfugier dans la pénitente adoration de la
Vierge.
Il semble en effet que la Vénus du
musicien soit la descendante de la Luxuria du
poète, de la blanche Belluaire, macérée de
parfums, qui écrase ses victimes sous le coup
d’énervantes fleurs; il semble que la Venus
wagnérienne attire et capte comme la plus
dangereuse des déités de Prudence, celle dont
cet écrivain n’écrit qu’en tremblant le nom:
Sodomita Libido. 309
The femme fatale and the demonic were vehicles for
Wilde and Huysmans to externalize an internal complexity
and divisiveness – the opposition of ˝notre enfer intérieur˝
and ‘notre ciel interne.˝ Thus the ˝satanic˝ characters in
their works can be divided into two types: the satanic
dandy (such as Des Esseintes, Durtal, or Lord Henry) or
alternatively characters that manifest extremes of satanic
behaviour (Dorian Gray, Gilles de Rais). These two kinds of
characters concretize two different opposing aspects of the
psyche. The obviously satanic characters evince a desire to
break out of the social order, a sense of despair and
alienation from the self. They attempt to move beyond the
norm by means of the artificial or non-natural. They long
for intensity of experience in which to lose the self, to