Aestheticism as counterattack: a study on the failures of Emma Bovary and Jean des Esseintes

• Grant number: 16/11619-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: December 01, 2016
• End date: November 30, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Literature Theory
• Agreement: Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES)
• Principal Investigator: Fabio Akcelrud Durão
• Grantee: Maria Elisa Perez Pagan
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The research project at hand has as its object the concept of Aestheticism that arises in the nineteenth century; it focuses both on the idea of the autonomy of art, such as it was conceived by the l'art pour l'art movement, and on the idea of the aestheticization of everyday life that is contemporary to it, visible in different spheres such as in architecture and in the decorative arts. From our perspective, Aestheticism, as a way of accentuating Romantic ideals to the extreme, works as a counterattack of sorts to growing industrialization, massification and the disenchantment of the world that is fundamentally linked to the consolidation of bourgeouis society. However, Astheticism is also part of this same society, taking part among these very changes. Thus, we agree with Michael Löwy's interpretation, according to which Romanticism works as a kind of modern criticism of modernity and capitalist society that is undertaken mainly from the standpoint of values and ideals from the past (LÖWY, 1995, p.34). Our investigation will be based upon two crucial works from the French literary tradition, namely Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1856) and Joris Karl-Huysmans' À Rebours (1884), whose consideration for the issue of Aestheticism seems indispensable, as we intend to demonstrate. Our aim is, through an exhaustive analysis of both works, grounded in readings taken from the fields of Literary Criticism, Philosophy and Sociology (and with an emphasis on the Critical Theory of society), to investigate the issue of Aestheticism from within these works through the practice of close reading, paying special attention, at least initially, to the fundamental contradiction between the commodity-form - such as defined by Karl Marx - and the aesthetic object. We believe that the scrutiny of Emma Bovary and Jean des Esseintes and their somewhat similar hardships in dealing with everyday bourgeois reality at its most basic level, will allow for casting a different light on the concept of Aestheticism and its strategies for the reenchantment of the world. (AU)

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

PAGAN, Maria Elisa Perez. Aestheticism as counterattack: study on the failures of Emma Bovary and Jean des Esseintes. 2019. Master's Dissertation - Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem Campinas, SP.