The Spectacle of Self: Decadent Æsthetics in Jean Lorrain

Like many characters in "fin-de-siècle" fiction, the heroes of Jean Lorrain are torn between their physical exhaustion and appetite for new stimulation and experience. What distinguishes Lorrain is the innovative way he examines their tendency toward "dédoublement." In Monsieur de Phocas (1901), the effort to objectify existence gives Phocas the distance to assess his life as spectacle, but only in the manner allowed by his sadistic mentor. For Monsieur de Bougrelon (1897), this self-duplication frees him of his dependency on others and his own past experience. A sign of creativity, his mythomania enables him to fictionalize his self. (REZ)