Remy de Gourmont and the crisis of erotic idealism

Thesis

This thesis explores the relationship between erotic desire and philosophical idealism in the work of Remy de Gourmont (1858-1915). Tracing a discourse of ‘erotic idealism’ through the chronological evolution of Gourmont’s novels and theatre, it also incorporates essays as well as select short fiction and poetry.

Through close readings of fiction and drama, I examine how Gourmont pursued a double-sided question: how does erotic desire shape our experience in the world of phenomenal appearances, and how is the experience of erotic desire shaped in turn? In pursuing this question, two of Gourmont’s most prominent concerns – idealism and erotic desire – continually transform one another in the course of his work, influencing his thought at large, yet constitute a distinct discourse from the critical and theoretical writings to which his intellectual development is most often attributed. I explore how Gourmont’s erotic idealism underpinned the major aesthetic and intellectual manoeuvres of his career, particularly his negotiation with Symbolist values, mysticism and the occult and, later, with the idea of Nature and the philosophy of materialism.

Where previous scholarship has understood Gourmont’s idealist worldview as essentially a tool of Symbolist aesthetic theory, I demonstrate how the riddle of erotic desire led Gourmont’s philosophy into different, often contradictory, territory. I argue that the interplay of idealism and erotic desire was a source of productive tension key to the evolution and maturity of Gourmont’s work.

Authors: Pruett, R

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-kz5bda9yn
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: Eros; idealism; idealist; decadence; Remy de Gourmont; sexuality; eroticism; French literature; symbolism
• Subjects: French; Decadence (Literary movement); Literature; Eroticism in literature; Idealism in literature; French fiction--19th century