Les faces du mépris chez Villiers de l’Isle-Adam
“The Different Faces of Contempt in the Villiers de l’Isle-Adam’s Œuvre”

Summary/Abstract: This article presents the origins and characteristics of contempt in the Villiers de l’Isle-Adam’s work. This feeling, complemented by disdain, is one of the key-terms in the aesthetics of this writer in search of glory. He used it as a dreamer and a scoffer as well; this term takes different forms and reveals Villiers’ philosophy. Next to the ideological contempt aimed at the materialistic values of bourgeois society which destroy the ideal, the Villiers’ œuvre also shows the scientific contempt aimed at the idea of progress and the journalistic contempt which has its origin in his experience of a writer who is doomed to failure. On the psychological level, the contempt can be pretended or assumed but it can also coexist with love, which leads to self-depreciation. This article analyses the struggle between two passions which proceeds by words and gestures.

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