Joris-Karl Huysmans
Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907) was a French novelist and art critic, known for his significant contributions to literature during the late 19th century. Born into a family of Dutch painters, he spent three decades working in the French Ministry of the Interior, which allowed him to pursue writing in his spare time. His early works were influenced by prominent figures like Charles Baudelaire and Émile Zola, leading him to produce naturalistic novels that depicted everyday life. Huysmans gained recognition for his controversial works, many of which were self-published or released outside France.
His most notable novel, *Against the Grain*, features the decadent aristocrat Duc des Esseintes and explores themes of aestheticism and the search for new experiences, influencing writers of the 1890s, including Oscar Wilde. Huysmans later shifted his focus to spiritual themes, particularly in his series featuring the character Durtal, reflecting his personal journey toward faith. This transition marked a blend of naturalism with spiritual exploration, as he engaged deeply with religious symbolism and the lives of saints. His legacy includes a nuanced examination of the struggle for religious belief during a time of increasing secularism, alongside explorations of gender, sexuality, and social commentary.
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Subject Terms
Joris-Karl Huysmans
French novelist
- Born: February 5, 1848
- Birthplace: Paris, France
- Died: May 12, 1907
- Place of death: Paris, France
Biography
Descended from a Dutch family of painters, French novelist Charles Marie Georges Huysmans (Dutch HOY-smahns or French wees-mahns) wrote under the pseudonym of Joris-Karl, or J.-K., Huysmans. After receiving a baccalauréat in 1866, he worked for thirty years in the Ministry of the Interior. This provided Huysmans with a small income that allowed him to devote his free time to literature. He was drafted into the National Guard in 1870 and served at the front during the Franco-Prussian War and then as a clerk. His first volume of stories showed the influence of Charles Baudelaire. He next came under the influence of Émile Zola, whom he knew well; he wrote a series of novels of everyday life in which he tried to outdo his master in the field of naturalism.
Some of Huysmans’s works were self-published or published outside France, partly because of their controversial nature. He was also active as an art critic and advocate of impressionism, writing for Le Voltaire, L’Art Moderne, and other periodicals in the late 1870’s and early 1880’s. Taking a new direction with the publication of Against the Grain, he produced his most important novel and the first volume of a loosely connected series. This story of the decadent aristocrat, the Duc des Esseintes, had a great influence on French and English writers of the 1890’s and is described in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). The jaded duc, seeking in bizarre fashions for new and unattainable sensations, was the prototype for the fin de siècle hero.
With Down There, Huysmans continued the work begun in Against the Grain, changing his hero’s name to Durtal and giving him a different social background. These novels are a spiritual autobiography, overlaid with much esoteric learning, of Huysmans’s own struggle toward faith. Durtal goes first to a Trappist monastery and finally to the city of Chartres, where he becomes a Benedictine oblate. In the last books, the plots are reduced to a minimum, and the author concerns himself with elaborate discussions of medieval religious symbolism and the lives of saints and mystics. Here and elsewhere, Huysmans worked to combine naturalism and spiritualism, drawing details of both human decadence and occult practice from his own experience.
Aside from his influence on the literature of the 1890’s, Huysmans is known for depicting a characteristic problem of the late nineteenth century: the struggle to regain the religious faith that, particularly in Roman Catholic countries, so many had lost. (Huysmans himself eventually became a devout Roman Catholic.) Later critics have also discussed Huysman’s themes of gender and sexuality, his social and political commentary, and the problematic nature of his language.
Bibliography
Antosh, Ruth B. Reality and Illusion in the Novels of J.-K. Huysmans. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1986.
Baldick, Robert. The Life of J.-K. Huysmans. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1955.
Banks, Brian R. The Image of Huysmans. New York: AMS Press, 1990.
Brandreth, Henry R. T. Huysmans. New York: Hillary House, 1963.
Cevasco, G. A. The Breviary of the Decadence: J.-K. Huysmans’s “À rebours” and English Literature. New York: AMS Press, 2001.
Cevasco, G. A. J.-K. Huysmans: A Reference Guide. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980.
Ellis, Havelock. Affirmations. 2d ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1916.
Hafez-Ergaut, Agnès. Le Vertige du vide: Huysmans, Céline, Sartre. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000.
Kahn, Annette. J.-K. Huysmans—Novelist, Poet, and Art Critic. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1987.
Laver, James. The First Decadent: Being the Strange Life of J. K. Huysmans. New York: Citadel Press, 1955.
Lloyd, Christopher. J.-K. Huysmans and the Fin-de-Siècle Novel. Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press, 1990.
Ridge, George Ross. Joris-Karl Huysmans. New York: Twayne, 1968.