Christa Giles

22
Art which deals with vice and perversity, then, has
an added function, for it serves to jolt the bourgeois out of
his complacency. The world, Wilde felt, ˝hates
Individualism,˝ 43 and therefore he believed that rebellion
and disobedience constitute a healthy protest and are
man’s original virtues, his only means to freedom. ˝He who
would be free,˝ quotes Wilde, ˝must not conform.˝ 44
This idea is in part derived from Sade’s work, and
we are reminded that the world ˝libertine˝ is derived from
the Latin ˝liber,˝ that is to say, free. The desire for
freedom, both from the prison of the self and from
externally imposed social restrictions, was, of course, a
remnant of romanticism. But as we have seen the decadent
does not resolve this rebellion in action; rather, he
withdraws, undermines, or obliquely subverts the existing
social order.
This constant tension between the reality and the
ideal drains the decadent and results in inaction or
withdrawal into a dream world. Des Esseintes claims that
˝anyone who dreams of the ideal, prefers illusion to
reality,˝ 45 yet his disengagement from life ends in paralysis
and ennui. He dreams of London, but the realization that
the London of his imagination is doubtless infinitely
superior to the London of actuality leads to paralysis; he no
longer wishes to make the trip. Wilde, like Huysmans,