Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.15291/sic/2.15.lc.2
Faustovski okultisti, flanerski detektivi i mučenici dekadencije: tri tipa dekadenata u Velikom bogu Panu i Brdu snova Arthura Machena
Sebastian A. Kukavica
Abstract
Alongside decadent style, form, imagery, and political imagination, decadent subjectivity is one of the defining features of the decadent novel. In Arthur Machen’s texts, various types of decadent characters appear – ranging from occult monomaniacs and cursed men of letters, to hedonists and degenerating youth, all the way to dandies and aesthetes. However, the question arises: are all decadent characters necessarily decadent subjects? This article analyses three dominant types of decadent characters – the Faustian occultist, the flâneur detective, and the martyr of decadence – in Machen’s most well-known decadent works: the novella The Great God Pan (1894) and the novel The Hill of Dreams (1907). It will be demonstrated that while the Faustian occultist and the flâneur detective are undoubtedly constituted as decadent seekers of meaning in modernity, they ultimately do not evolve into reservoirs of decadent antimodernism. On the other hand, the character of the saintly martyr of decadence emerges as a fully realized decadent subject. He not only bears witness to the spectacle of the decline of the modern West, but also derives pleasure from this very collapse – including from his own downfall. The martyr of decadence willingly sacrifices his life on the altar of decadent aesthetics in order to enable an act of parrhesia that unveils the essence of modernity.
Keywords
Arthur Machen; decadent subject; decadent aesthetics; antimodernism
Hrčak ID:
335094
URI
Publication date:
1.6.2025.
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