Christa Giles

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Indeed Wilde was to write that ˝the way of paradoxes is the
way of truth. To test Reality we must see it on the
tightrope.˝ 157 The dandy exists within a relativized
universe, a universe without absolutes. His ironic distance
therefore enables him to function and to retain his sanity.
Des Esseintes and Durtal certainly exemplify the need to
find meaning in the world, and the coutervailing
realization that no such meaning is to be found results in
irony and self-mockery. As Schlegel points out: ˝Die
Paradoxie ist für die Ironie die conditio sine qua non, die
Seele, Quell und Princip. …˝ 158 Both Wilde and Huysmans
view art as a means of investing the moment with
significance, of triumphing or attempting to triumph over
the ˝mauvais quart d’heure˝ 159 that ends in death. Thus
towards the end of the century the mask of the Pierrot
suggests the skull behind it, or perhaps even nothingness.
In Poe’s story, ˝The Masque of the Red Death,˝ the
void is presented in particularly powerful symbolic terms.
In an unknown country at an unknown date the Prince
Prospero retires with a thousand members of the court to
the safety and seclusion of an abbey when his country is
visited by the plague. They pass the time with masques and
lavish entertainment. At one of these masques a guest
appears dressed as the Red Death. At the stroke of
midnight, the furious prince attempts to unmask the