Le jardin dans la littérature fin-de-siècle, ou quand un motif narratif devient un objet esthétique

Abstract

In literature, the garden is part of a dual process of configuring or reconfiguring the world. Naturally, the concrete garden acts as a representation of places, spaces and plants. In texts, however, we have the added dimension of the garden itself being represented by language. This literary motif historically highlights the themes of eroticism and of the relationship between the individual and his collectivity. Thus, the classical and romantic garden depicts the positive fusion between man and a certain nature. However, in the late 19th century, there is an inversion of this rhetoric: the decadent garden favours the cultural or even the artificial pole in such an extreme way that nature becomes deleterious and lethal. Moreover, the garden is no longer a narrative motif serving only the development of a story and the construction of characters; its linguistic components become essential. It thus becomes an autonomized æsthetic object, capable of creating new meanings.

Keywords

• garden in littérature
• motif
• fin-de-siècle littérature
• Huysmans
• Mirbeau
• Mallarmé