ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on France fin de siècle and demonstrates to which extent Decadents, starting from a tactical reversal of the stigmas attached to them, end up developing their provocative poetics precisely around the repugnant fauna to which they were compared, using species differences also to conceptualize social and gender issues. Presented by opponents—or by themselves—as exotic monsters, monkeys, snails, or tapeworms, to name just a few examples, the authors and characters of fin de siècle seem to be going through a sort of inverted evolution, from primates to canines, from mammals to molluscs, from frogs to tadpoles. In parallel, animals, omnipresent in decadent literary works, are alternatively objects of self-projection, victims of sophisticated and perverse experiments, weapons directed against the hated human race, or simply protagonists of nightmares. By identifying the most recurrent paradigms concerning animals, this chapter investigates how French Decadence reflects upon identity and creativity through the lens of repellent fauna and tries to understand what insights into animals’ lives and minds we can deduce from the Decadents’ predominant metaphors and uncanny rhetorical figures.
