Christa Giles

undermining the reliability of rational and empirical
arguments, raising doubts about the existence of an
external world, God, and the possibility of attaining truth
by either inductive or deductive means. Wilde questioned
the validity of scientific reasoning which was preoccupied
solely with the objective world, and maintained that
˝science can never grapple with the irrational. That is why
it has no future…in this world.˝ 31 But decadent art not only
grappled with the irrational, it also turned to the
unconscious as the only reality remaining to it after a
rejection of the external world. It is in part for this reason
that the dream and satanism were recurrent themes in
Wilde and Huysmans’ work.
The emphasis upon sin and vice in Wilde’s and
Huysmans’ work issues from a complex source, stemming
not only from an interest in the irrational and unconscious,
the desire to obtain self-knowledge, the hope of embracing
the totality of life by discovering unimagined and
unexperienced sensations, and a desire to shock the
bourgeoisie. It is also an assertion of individuality, an
attempt to revolt against the realization that possession of
the ideal inevitably leads to disappointment. As Philippe
Jullian notes, in a sort of perverse fury, decadents focussed
on evil and vice in part because they were unable to ˝find a
faith or love to match their illusions.˝ 32 But it is also true,
however, that the decadents sought and found a new and
19