Christa Giles

CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION
˝Modern life is complex and relative. These are its
two distinguishing notes,˝ 590 wrote Wilde in 1897. And it
was this complexity and relativity that Wilde and
Huysmans attempted to grapple with in their works.
Through the prism of the relationship of art and life they
examined the complexity of the self which emerged in
their work primarily as a concern with individuality and
individual expression. In the face of an absence of fixed
values this led to subjectivist tendencies, a focus on the
world of the self – the alienation from the external and a
preoccupation with an internal world. By extension, this
is reflected in their work as a concern with the
unconscious, dreams, and fantasy. Through such
thematic preoccupations as the dream, satanism, and the
dandy, they affirmed the interrelationship and