Christa Giles

74
(perversity, for example) are good. This inversion of values,
as Praz points out, is the basis of sadism: ˝Vice represents
the positive active element, virtue the negative and
passive.˝ 202 In La Philosophie dans le Boudoir, the suggestion is
that the transgression against established laws (particularly
of the church) is a source of erotic release for the dandy
precisely because it is an intellectual stance – a rejection of
pre-existing social structures. Poe’s definition of perversity
in ˝Le Chat Noir˝ evokes this response against the
established mores:
Qui n’a pas cent fois commis une action folle
ou vile pour la seule raison qu’il savait devoir
s’en abstenir. N’avons-nous pas une
inclination perpétuelle, en depit de notre
jugement, à violer ce qui est la loi, seulement
parceque nous savons que c’est la loi? 203
This idea of breaking the boundaries of experience
underlies Là-bas and The Picture of Dorian Gray: ˝Live! Live
the wonderful life that is in you,˝ Lord Henry advises
Dorian, ˝Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching
for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.˝ 204 An extreme
interpretation of these excesses might be the Sadeian notion
expressed by Durtal in Là-bas: ˝one can take pride in going
as far in crime as in virtue.˝ 205