The relationship between fashion (clothing), fashionable behaviour (manners), and the fashioning (development, elaboration) of scientific models is extremely complex. For all its objectivity, science is just as subject to matters of taste (aesthetics) as the latest designs paraded along the catwalk, and belief systems are frequently outmoded over time: after all, phrenology went out with the bustle, and the members of the Flat Earth Society are today less numerous than the wearers of navel rings. An examination of the nexus of scientific research, aesthetics, and dress codes is central to the understanding of the dynamic and highly mutable concept of fashion in its broadest sense. For what happens when, in the quest to classify certain individuals, the scientist relies empirically on the clothing and mannerisms of a group, without questioning the guise and disguise that the chosen attire affords?

By way of an answer, the following case study of the conflation of the identities of the decadent aesthete, the homosexual and the dandy, illustrates, with the wisdom of hindsight, that scientific theory, literary praxis, and popular stereotyping are all subject to the dictates of fashion.

During the second half of the nineteenth century, in both France and Britain, new lines of scientific thought and certain thematic trends in literature gave rise to the study and classification of what today is generally known as homosexuality. The terms uranism, urning, homosexual, invert and their French equivalents (lope, copaille, homosexuel, inverti) were all coined in the fin de siècle. Concurrently, as notions of the existence of a homosexual identity were forged, a new literature written by and for a gay male public was born. Lord Alfred Douglas's "love that dare not speak its name"[1] in the 1890s subsequently found a voice and learnt to call itself by many another name such that nearly 100 years later the British film director Derek Jarman may speak of "the love that can't keep its big mouth shut".[2] As the historian Jeffrey Weeks points out:

The historical evidence points to the latter part of the nineteenth century as the crucial period in the conceptualisation of homosexuality as the distinguishing characteristic of a particular type of person, the "invert" or "homosexual", and the corresponding development of a new awareness of self amongst some "homosexuals". From the mid-nineteenth century there is a bubbling of debate, notation and classification, associated with names like Casper, Tardieu, Ulrichs, Westphal, Krafft-Ebing, Ellis, Hirschfeld, Moll, Freud, all of whom sought to define, and hence psychologically or medically to construct, new categorisations.[3]

Queer theorist Eve Sedgwick gives a clear appraisal of the present state of critical play:

Recent gay male historiography, influenced by Foucault, has been especially good at unpacking and interpreting those parts of nineteenth-century systems of classification that clustered most closely around what current taxonomies construe as "the homosexual." The "sodomite," the "invert," the "homosexual," the "heterosexual" himself, are all objects of historically and institutionally explicable construction.[4]

In other words, the identity of the homosexual as he appears in late nineteenth century writings, whether scientific, psychological or literary, is largely defined and fashioned by popular thought systems in vogue at the time.

One particularly persuasive illustration from the late nineteenth century of the role of fashions in belief systems is the concurrence of the discursive constructions that describe the decadent aesthete. He is easily recognisable, then as now, under the guise of that elegantly dressed, sometimes effeminate figure who waves his perfumed lace handkerchief at us from the annals of fin de siècle history. The picture of Oscar Wilde may spring to mind immediately; however, it is more useful, in terms of this present modest proposal, to see Wilde as the end point, not the point de départ. Let us retrace the currents of contemporary thought which led to the configuration of Wilde, the performative persona, as the embodiment of that particularly peculiar identity.

Thus far the term "homosexual" has been used to circumscribe conveniently the subject of this discussion. Such taxonomy, when applied to late nineteenth century France and Britain is misleading. Foucault quite rightly advises against this practice of semantic time-travel:

En fait, la notion d'homosexualité est bien peu adéquate pour recouvrir une expérience, des formes de valorisation et un système de découpage si différents du nôtre.[5]

For the sake of historicity terms such as pédérastie [1580] and inversion [1882][6], when understood in context, may prove more fruitful. Larousse's Grand dictionnaire universel du XIX^e siècle, defines pédérastie as, among other things, the love of one man for another.[7] In his Vocabulaire de l'homosexualité masculine Claude Courouve traces quite convincingly the origins of inversion back to the translation of Westphal's work in 1878; the notion of sexual inversion having then been developed by the doctors Charcot et Magnan in the early 1880s.[8] The term sodomie on the other hand appears to have been outdated in its usage by the end of the nineteenth century.[9] It should be evident that the very language used to describe our subject is the product of a certain lexical fashion; for denotation and connotation change over time and across cultures. Thus what was understood in French scientific circles by the term pédéraste during the latter half of the nineteenth century, is not to be confused with the pederasts and paedophiles of modern jurisprudence. Let it be clearly stated that the term pédéraste / pederast, as further defined below, is used in the present discussion in its historical context.

This current search for the discursive origins of the decadent invert (this "chasse aux 'pédérastes'"[10] as Pierre Hahn puts it) begins in France in 1857 with the publication of an Etude médico-légale sur les attentats aux moeurs by Doctor Ambroise Tardieu. The influence of Tardieu's study should not be underestimated. Antony Copley in his Sexual Moralities in France 1780-1980 maintains that:

The work he published in 1857, (was) to become one of the most widely read, and indeed just about the only work of its kind available on the subject of homosexuality until the 1920s.[11]

Dominique Fernandez, in his critique of the medical literature on homosexuality, accuses Tardieu of having unduly influenced the modern conception of the homosexual subject:

la croyance, si largement répandue, que tout homme qui refuse le rôle viril où la société cherche à l'enfermer est une "folle", une caricature de l'autre sexe, remonte à ces pages de Tardieu. De même que cet autre préjugé, selon lequel les homosexuels se diviseraient en deux catégories, celles des "actifs" et celle des "passifs".[12]

Significantly in terms of the search for trends in thought and fashions in clothing, Tardieu, in his analysis of the pederastic condition, focusses on the external signs which betray the sodomite. His chapter entitled "De l'extérieur des pédérastes" is of critical importance in the development of a collective contemporary consciousness of the identity of the pédéraste. For Tardieu, the physical appearance of the pederast is of great concern; the external signifiers of dress code and physical demeanour are taken ipso facto as indicative of an underlying truth about the nature of the individual. To illustrate this it suffices to consider the portrait of the pederast as painted by Tardieu, quoted in Pierre Larousse's Grand dictionnaire universel du XIX^e siècle, - a format which did much to popularise Tardieu's theories -:

Le caractère le plus frappant des pédérastes, de ceux surtout qui cherchent à attirer les hommes, se peint le plus souvent dans leur extérieur. "Les cheveux frisés, le teint fardé, le col découvert, la taille serré de manière à faire saillir les formes, les doigts, les oreilles, la poitrine chargés de bijoux, toute la personne exhalant l'odeur des parfums les plus pénétrants, et, dans la main, un mouchoir, des fleurs ou quelque travail d'aiguille, telle est la physionomie étrange, repoussante, et à bon droit suspecte, qui trahit les pédérastes. Un trait non moins caractéristique, c'est le contraste de cette fausse élégance et de ce culte extérieur de la personne avec une malproprété sordide, qui suffirait à elle seule pour éloigner de ces misérables... La coiffure et le costume constituent l'une des préoccupations les plus constantes chez les pédérastes."[13]

Evidently for Tardieu, the clothes do make the man, and a fashion statement is as readable and as betraying as any self-confession.

A brief glance under the entry "pédérastie" also brings to the fore the correlates of sexual inversion; these include prostitution, blackmail, transvestism, murder, and mental alienation. Furthermore:

il existe le plus souvent chez les pédérastes des symptômes morbides et des délabrements de constitution que déterminent les excès de débauche auxquels ils se livrent.[14]

Conveniently enough the emphasis remains very much upon the description of a particular type of individual, recognisable to all. This then was the state of the scientific analysis of the pederast in the 1860s. As Philippe Lejeune puts it:

la médecine légale a envisagé ce qu'on appelait alors la "pédérastie" d'un point de vue strictement externe: anatomiquement, on cherchait les signes de sodomie active ou passive; socialement, le phénomène était appréhendé dans ses rapports avec la criminalité; moralement, on condamnait ce vice avec horreur. Mais psychologiquement, on ne savait pratiquement rien.[15]

This reliance on appearances and external features is far from superficial in its importance, for the implication of such representations of the homosexual subject is that the identifying signs -- the clothes, the jewels -- are taken prima facie to be symptomatic of a deviant sexuality. External signs are crucial to the debate -- in a similar vein Oscar Wilde cautions: "Those who go beyond the surface do so at their own peril".[16] Hence the pederast is classified and judged by the clothes he wears.

Moving on to contemporaneous developments in literature, it is Tardieu's image which provides the discursive link between the medical and legal conception of the pederast, the historical figure, and the literary portrayal of the decadent invert. Fortuitously Tardieu's guide to pederast watching provides a handy summary of the key elements in the construction of the decadent aesthete. In résumé:

- the love of jewels and perfumes points directly to the tastes and fantasies of des Esseintes, the hero of Joris-Karl Huysmans' bible of Decadence, the novel A rebours [1884];

- ce culte extérieur de la personne links the pederast to the dandy. Real-life dandies such as Beau Brummel, Barbey d'Aurevilly, Baudelaire, Robert de Montesquiou and Oscar Wilde provided clear models for the well-dressed heroes of the Decadence and beyond.

- the contrast between the fausse élégance and the malproprété sordide hints at the tension and dissonance between appearances and reality -- a theme common to the early works of homosexual literature such as The sins of the cities of the plain [1891] and Teleny [1893] in which the necessity of public inscrutability is perpetually the barrier to private satisfaction.

Literary Decadence, although difficult to define, is generally said to have emerged as a product of the 1880s with the publication of A rebours and of the hoax Les déliquescences d'Adoré Floupette [1885].[17] Like much of the literature of its time Decadence is pessimistic in its philosophy. As a movement it looks nostalgically at the past and disparagingly at the present. The future is apocalyptic. With atavistic Darwinism and Max Nordau's Dégénérescence [1894] colouring the intellectual back-ground, physical, moral, and mental degeneration of all kinds are the tropes of Decadence -- the individual and society are in imminent danger of destruction. Traditional values are turned topsy-turvy; thus religion is subverted into black magic; positivism becomes pessimism, the artificial dominates over the natural. Inversion of the status quo becomes the predominant metaphor, the sexual inversion of the individual being the logical manifestation of this general decline.[18]

Unlike his thriving decadent sister the femme fatale, the decadent hero embodies all that ails contemporary society; he is physically sick, neurotic, and sexually perverse. Often of noble birth, he is the victim of innumerable hereditary defects; he is the last of his line: "fin de race" as the expression states. Most often he is depicted as the effeminate, weak, and depraved dandy. Impotence and/or sexual perversion are the lot of the decadent hero. His choice of sexual partners is often ambivalent. Within the discursive frame of Decadence, pédérastie, by Tardieu's standard, presents the ideal metaphor by which to illustrate and explain the depths of depravity to which the protagonist must subject himself.

Huysmans' des Esseintes is the archetypal case study. Notions of decadence and degeneracy colour his characterisation:

La décadence de cette ancienne maison avait, sans nul doute, suivi régulièrement son cours: l'effémination des mâles était allée en s'accentuant; comme pour achever l'oeuvre des âges, les des Esseintes marièrent, pendant deux siècles, leurs enfants entre eux, usant leur reste de vigueur dans les unions consanguines.
De cette famille naguère si nombreuse [...] un seul rejeton vivait, le duc Jean, un grêle jeune homme de trente ans, anémique et nerveux, aux joues caves, aux yeux d'un bleu froid d'acier, au nez éventé et pourtant droit, aux mains sèches et fluettes.[19]

Much is made of des Esseintes's bizarre experiments with various perfumes and of his love for precious stones. His love of artifice, illusion and the unnatural comes to dominate his entire secluded existence. His sexual life is, however, not without incident; one brief encounter provides all of the necessary clues. In short, des Esseintes is picked up by a slightly effeminate young man on the streets of Paris, and, in the space of a paragraph, a gratifying friendship is born:

Et du hasard de cette rencontre, était née une défiante amitié qui se prolongea durant des mois; des Esseintes n'y pensait plus sans frémir; jamais il n'avait supporté un plus attirant et un plus impérieux fermage; jamais il n'avait connu des périls pareils, jamais aussi il ne s'était senti plus douloureusement satisfait.[20]

This painful satisfaction needs little or no commentary. It suffices to conclude that the liaison is conducted on more levels than the purely spiritual.

Across the Channel a similar figure was to see the light of day. The publication in 1890 of Oscar Wilde's The picture of Dorian Gray marks a great turning point in this debate which couples the decadent aesthete with the pédéraste. As Jonathan Dollimore has aptly demonstrated, the concept of inversion is central to Wilde's transgressive aesthetic.[21] Furthermore, this brings into question the importance of the role of literature in the development of contemporary conceptualisation of the homosexual. Critics have long debated whether Wilde created his characters in his own image, or vice versa.

That The picture of Dorian Gray sits snugly in the tradition of literary Decadence can hardly be denied. Huysmans' influence is almost omnipresent. There is little doubt that the book which reveals so much to Dorian is none other than A rebours. Elsewhere in the novel, passages describing the perfumes and jewels which take Dorian's fancy might well have been plagiarised from "la bible de l'esthétique décadente".[22] Dorian's decadence can be taken as given.

That which must be established is Dorian's homosexuality. Fortunately the critic Jeffrey Meyers has already performed most of this task. As he claims:

Most critics of The picture of Dorian Gray (1891) treat the book as a classical illustration of literary aestheticism and decadence or, like Roditi, concentrate on its heterogeneous sources, from the Gothic novel through Balzac and Poe to Pater and Huysmans. Despite the abundant evidence, both external and internal, no critic has discussed the work as a homosexual novel. But this interpretation defines more precisely the nature of its decadence and its relation to Baudelaire and Against Nature; reveals a coherence and consistency in the uneven, loosely structured, melodramatic and sometimes absurd work; and suggests that the real meaning of the novel, like so many others on the subject, is more complex and interesting than it appears to be. It is really about the jealousy and pain, the fear and guilt of being a homosexual.[23]

Although many today would question that the novel is "really about" anything at all, Meyers' referentially-based point about the homosexual significance of the novel is still valid, if a little over-stated. In his essay on Dorian Gray and gross indecency, Joseph Bristow somewhat hastily proclaims the novel as harbinger of modern gay male literature:

Dorian Gray stands at the beginning of a self-consciously homosexual literary tradition opposing the social undesirability of cross-class sexual relationships and the decadent uncleanliness associated with them.[24]

But to return to the physical elements of the depiction of the homosexual in the novel... The central characters, Dorian, Basil, and Lord Henry have all been taken, by various critics, and by Wilde himself, to represent different projections of Wilde's own personality.[25] But it is of course Dorian who takes centre stage. His physical beauty is such that it exerts a strange charm on his entourage -- everyone loves him, not least of all the men:

Lord Henry looked at him. Yes, he certainly was wonderfully handsome, with his finely-curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair [...] No wonder Basil Hallward worshipped him.[26]

There is, too, something very egoistic about Dorian's picture gazing:

Once in boyish mockery of Narcissus, he had kissed, or feigned to kiss, those painted lips that now smiled so cruelly at him. Morning after morning he had sat before the portrait, wondering at its beauty, almost enamoured of it, as it seemed to him at times.[27]

The mention of the myth of Narcissus can hardly be accidental in this context; the youth so besotted with his own image, so in love with himself comes face to face with his own sexuality. Since logic unmasks Narcissus' homosexual desires, it is here that one finds the literary echo which betrays Dorian's sexual proclivities.

For the dominant metaphor by which homosexuality is portrayed in the works of the decadent period is that of the double. Few would challenge the primacy in Wilde's novel of the tension created by the contrast between Dorian's charmed existence and the parallel counter-current of the portrait's visible degeneracy. The novel re-enacts the "elegant appearance / sordid reality" dichotomy already established by Tardieu. In this respect, Dorian Gray fits quite squarely into the discursive frame - or fashion - of the late nineteenth century homosexual novel proper, and into the broader context of those works more recently claimed as works of closet homosexuality.

It is the theme of the double which binds the protagonist of the decadent novel to his homologue in contemporaneous homosexual literature. For both, in a sense, are manifestations of the fin de siècle hero. As Marc Fumaroli points out in his preface to A rebours:

Le héros "fin de siècle" est atteint d'une schizophrénie qui n'épargne rien et qui dissocie tout: son âme, sa sexualité, mais aussi la santé de son corps.[28]

Dorian Gray is not unique in his double identity, his literary predecessor, Dr. Jekyll, had to come to terms with similar issues. In his analysis of Stevenson's "Queer yarns", and in particular of The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde [1885], Wayne Koestenbaum argues quite amusingly that:

Jekyll's and Hyde's relationship bears a sexual charge as well. The story of their bondage to each other shows that male doubleness -- the divided self and the double writer -- had acquired, by 1885, associations of homosexuality.[29]

Koestenbaum may be exaggerating a little, but it is nonetheless true that, at one point in the novel, Jekyll does experience towards Hyde feelings which are at least homosocial in nature, if not quite homosexual:

when I looked upon that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome. This, too, was myself. It seemed natural and human.[30]

To invoke the tradition of gay male literature of the period is to further substantiate claims of the existence of a certain (stereo)type of individual, whose homosexuality was recognisable by his particularly effeminate or dandified appearance. In Britain the first text of such note is the Sins of the cities of the plain [1881]. This disjointed and sexually explicit tale purports to be the autobiography of Jack Saul, a London prostitute who was later to give evidence in the Euston libel case of 1890, part of the Cleveland Street brothel scandal. Much in the narrative seems exaggerated; the sections that deal with the many and various sexual encounters seem to endow the protagonists with almost superhuman lusts. Although extensive in kind, Saul's sexual experiences -- which include transvestism, bondage, flagellation, fellatio and sodomy -- are almost exclusively male-to-male and adult in nature. Furthermore, Jack Saul, in explanation of his career as Mary-Anne, claims of his tool of trade:

It's my only fortune, sir; and often introduces me to the best of society's discerning gentlemen. But it really provides for all I could want [...] I find it more to my interest not to waste my strength on women. These clandestine games pay so well, and are quite more enjoyable.[31]

It is this that allows the narrative to be classified as a homosexual or gay story in the current understanding of the term, as summarised by Richard Dyer:

a 'gay story' is then one written by someone who experiences their homosexual preferences as defining their personality and/or social role.[32]

Having thus inserted The sins of the cities of the plain into the homosexual literary canon, it is however almost impossible to find therein aspects reflecting literary decadence. Jack Saul's recollections display a total lack of the recherché elements so beloved of the Decadence. At best the protracted passages concerning transvestite orgies hint at a form of androgyny. Jack's partners virtually defy categorisation being, as they are, of all ages and from all walks of life -- quite literally tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man... Nonetheless, in terms of the depiction of the homosexual character, one detail is worth mentioning. When Jack first catches Mr. Cambon's eye he is described thus (Tardieu's mouchoir ou quelque travaille d'aiguille is here quite conspicuous):

my attention was particularly taken by an effeminate, but very good looking young fellow [...] Dressed in tight-fitting clothes, which set off his Adonis-like figure to the best advantage, especially about what snobs would call the fork of his trousers [...] He had small and elegant feet, set off by pretty patent leather boots, a fresh looking beardless face, and almost feminine features. He wore auburn hair, and sparkling blue eyes [...] Presently the object of my curiosity slowly turned to face me, as he took off his hat, and wiped his face with a beautiful white silk handkerchief.[33]

Of greater literary merit is the anonymous Teleny, or the reverse of the medal -- a physiological romance of today, first published in London in 1893. Wayne Koestenbaum maintains that this novel was a work of collaboration, and there is some evidence to suggest that several sympathetic parties -- reputedly Wilde among them -- had a hand in its drafting.[34] However, the narrative and style remain fairly consistent throughout. Several narratological elements link Teleny to the decadent tradition; the setting, fin de siècle Paris; the plot, an up-dated Manon Lescaut with a new sexual twist -- for the central character turns out to be an homme fatal -- ; and the protagonists, whose interests are those of a well-to-do but bored upper class. From another perspective the novel can be seen as a tragic "coming out" story in which the ill-fated narrator, Camille Des Grieux, realises his sexuality through his love for the bisexual pianist René Teleny. For ultimately it is Teleny's moral decadence, his bisexuality, which brings about the unhappy conclusion.

What then of the physical aspect of the characters? Teleny and Des Grieux, themselves painted in glowing colours, merit little attention, except to stress that at one point they are seen as doubles of each other:

we are alike in looks as well as tastes. Who knows -- you are, perhaps, my doppelganger? Then, woe to one of us![35]

Elsewhere in the novel, the overweening dandy Briancourt, who describes himself as "mad"[36] (perhaps the word should be "folle"?) adds a jealously vicious twist to the plot by threatening to "out" Des Grieux; in an anonymous note he writes to the hapless young man:

If you do not give up your lover T-- you shall be branded as an enculé. [37]

Teleny and Des Grieux inhabit an essentially homosexual world within late nineteenth century Paris. If the description of the city is vague and lacking in verisimilitude, the depiction of the fauna of the contemporary beats,[38] the vespasiennes and les quais de la Seine, is all too familiar. Des Grieux relates:

He lingered once more, let me pass, walked on at a brisker pace, and was again beside me. Finally I looked at him. Though it was cold he was but slightly dressed. He wore a short, black velvet jacket and a pair of light grey, closely fitting trousers marking the shape of the thighs and buttocks like tights.
As I looked at him, he stared at me again, then smiled with that vacant, vapid, idiotic contraction of a raccrocheuse. Looking at me with an inviting leer, he directed his steps towards a neighbouring Vespasienne. [...]
After a while I again heard steps coming from behind; the person was close up to me. I smelt a strong scent -- if the noxious odour of patchouli can be called a scent.
The person touched me slightly as he passed by. He begged my pardon; it was the man of the velvet jacket, or his Dromio. I looked at him as he again stared at me and grinned. His eyes were painted with kohl, his cheeks dabbed with rouge. He was quite beardless. For a moment I doubted whether he was man or woman.[39]

Further down the path another of these creatures awaits Des Grieux's attention:

Someone else came with mincing steps, and shaking his buttocks, from behind one of these pissors [sic]. He was an old, wiry, simpering man as shrivelled as a frost-bitten apple. His cheeks were very hollow, and his projecting cheekbones very red; his face was shaven and shorn, and he wore a wig with long, fair, flaxen locks. [...]
His looks were not only very demure, but there was an almost maidenly coyness about the old man that gave him the appearance of a virgin-pimp.[40]

One peculiar detail about this old tante reconfirms the previously established stereotype:

He, it appears, lived in every other respect like a hermit, and only indulged himself in one thing -- fine lawn handkerchiefs, either with lace or embroidery, to wipe the amateur's instrument when he had done with it.[41]

Perhaps the finest real-life example of this fin de siècle interplay of the decadent and the homosexual is the lesser-known historical figure of Jean Lorrain [1855-1906]. A literary jack-of-all-trades Lorrain came to embody, in the minds of his contemporaries, the fashion for all that was decadent, depraved, and homosexual. In the vituperative words of Paul Hyex:

ceux qui ont été témoins du succès inouï de Jean Lorrain et qui s'en souviennent, se demandent comment cet écrivain de décadence, cet annaliste de la pourriture, ce peintre de la dépravation, ce chroniqueur des vices les plus ignobles et de la corruption la plus infecte, put s'imposer et en imposer pendant tant d'années.[42]

Lorrain's works are imbued with the unwholesome taint of a civilisation in decay. Notably he was convicted in 1892 pour outrages aux bonnes moeurs[43] and fined 3000 Francs for publishing the story of an infanticide committed by a lesbian couple, Autour de ces dames. To quote Paul Hyex once again:

Ces histoires d'invertis et de prostituées, qui se déroulent dans le cadre somptueux des restaurants à la mode et des hôtels de la Riviera, soulèvent littéralement le coeur de dégoût et provoquent une immédiate nausée.[44]

Lorrain, the consummate dandy, inspired directly by Huysmans, Barbey d'Aurevilly and Oscar Wilde, made no secret of his sexuality, calling himself "l'Enfilanthrope"[45] and advertising himself in the most outrageous of costumes. J.-H. Rosny Aîné provides a colourful portrait of the artist à la Tardieu:

L'homme de belle stature, bien construit, élégant même, malgré la poitrine trop convexe, portait des vêtements qui lui seyaient, souvent de coupe excentrique. Il lui advint d'arborer, en plein boulevard, de bizarres costumes de flanelle blanche, des pantalons avec de larges galons brodés, des bijoux de femme. Le visage maquillé, il fleurait des parfums si forts qu'on le sentait en quelque sorte venir avant de l'avoir aperçu.[46]

Elsewhere Lorrain's one-time editor, P.V. Stock, describes the novelist in similar terms:

Ses costumes étaient de couleurs voyantes, la boutonnière toujours garnie d'une fleur, -- une orchidée le plus souvent, -- la cravate ornée d'une épingle à la pierre voyante, les doigts ceinturés de bagues bizarres. Il s'imprégnait de parfums communs, aux odeurs violentes.[47]

Lorrain is doubly interesting in that not only did he portray himself in the mould of the decadent aesthete, but he also created his characters in his own image. Henry Bataille provides an appropriate analysis:

Il a aimé créer des fantômes à ses diverses images. Il a voulu s'incarner dans ces types, et c'est à cause d'un narcissisme perpétuel que nous connûmes Bougrelon, Phocas, et l'étonnant Voronsol [sic, Noronsoff].[48]

Truth and fiction become one in the figure of Jean Lorrain; Decadence, homosexuality, the public and private identities of the author, the neuroses of his characters are all parts of the same image. Even his close friend Rachilde was unable to discern where Lorrain ended and his art began, for she asks:

Jean Lorrain, l'auteur de Monsieur de Bougrelon, était à la fois le peintre et le modèle de ses héros. Qui était vrai? Qui était faux? Le savait-il lui-même?[49]

Here art and life reflect each other, a literary trend and a scientific thought system are embraced and embodied by an historical figure. More than just influencing the individual, fashion defines and creates new modes of self-expression.

To elucidate further, one of Lorrain's greatest achievements is his Monsieur de Phocas [1901] -- the diary of a world-weary dandy who records his tortured descent into criminal neurosis. A short physical description of the young man suffices to alert the reader to the proclivities of the fashionable young gentleman:

Etroitement moulé dans un complet de drap vert myrthe, cravaté très haut d'une soie vert pâle et comme sablée d'or, M. de Phocas était un frêle et long jeune homme de vingt-huit ans à peine, à la face exsangue et extraordinairement vieille, sous des cheveux bruns crespelés et courts.[50]

Like his spiritual predecessors des Esseintes and Dorian Gray, M. de Phocas, is obsessed by priceless gems and objects of beauty. Possessed of a morbid sensuality, Phocas has a marked sexual preference for the fey; his mistresses are boyish in appearance, incredibly thin (des invraisemblables minceurs[51]) and desperately ill. In his review of the first publication of the novel, the critic Olympe Gilbart resumes the principal features of Phocas's personality:

Produit de serre chaude, fruit blet d'une civilisation agonisante, M. de Phocas est le type extrême et définitif de la race qui se meurt. Il a puisé dans une hérédité malsaine des germes putrides. Ses artères charrient paresseusement un sang à peine rosé [...] Ses nerfs surexcités agitent en lui de folles débauches [...] Son corps est le jouet d'une dépravation fatale. Et il se plonge brutalement, mais avec une conscience impitoyable qui raisonne le moindre geste, dans les pires inversions.[52]

By its simple juxtaposition of ideas, the portrait conflates elements of physical degeneration, with moral degeneracy and sexual inversion.

By the turn of the century this well-defined image of the homosexual decadent aesthete was already in a state of decline. Theorists such as Krafft-Ebing and Havelock Ellis, had already broadened the debate on pédérastie from the purely medical or criminal into the psychological and the genetic. For the fin de siècle, John Marshall maintains quite rightly that:

The link between homosexuality, prostitution and sexual decadence was dramatically reinforced by a series of public scandals in the early 1880s.[53]

However, by 1900 the decadent sexual equation no longer held true as the ætiologies and manifestations of homosexuality were brought into question and the previous categorisations subdivided. For instance, as early as 1896, Marc-André Raffalovich begins his Uranisme et Unisexualité, by stating that:

On peut diviser les uranistes en ultra-virils, virils, efféminés, passifs.[54]

As the twentieth century dawned literary Decadence was beginning to wane, Jean Lorrain being one of the last exponents of the genre; un décadent fin de race. The fin de siecle figure whose decadent sexuality proclaimed the end of civilisation was to live on in various guises well into the twentieth century; as Aschenbach in Thomas Mann's Death in Venice [1912], as the Baron de Charlus in Proust's reflective A la recherche du temps perdu, as Anthony Blanche in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead revisited [1945], and some may even see the the identity of Quentin Crisp as fitting into the same mould. So, while Oscar Wilde still stands as representative of a particular type of homosexual, his death in 1900 only signals the commencement of the deconstruction of the image of "un personnage (merveilleux dandy homosexuel), une matérialisation vivante de la décadence esthétique".[55]

By way of conclusion then, the fashion conscious decadent aesthete, incarnate in the historical figures of Jean Lorrain and Oscar Wilde, can be seen as a product of the medical, scientific, legal and fictional literature of the late nineteenth century. With their green carnations and white lace handkerchiefs, they remain simultaneously victims and vanquishers of the taxonomic fashions of their day which constructed their social identity. However, while today's popular representation of Wilde corresponds quite closely to that of the decadent aesthete, history serves to show that nothing is immutable and that external signs are always subject to change. The scientific trends, popular beliefs and literary fashions which coalesced to create the identity of the decadent aesthete were already becoming outmoded at the turn of the century, and indeed may have died with Oscar Wilde himself. Less than a week after Wilde's demise in 1900, Jean Lorrain penned this strange portrait of the author of Dorian Gray:

Oscar Wilde était plutôt d'aspect antipathique; très grand, gras et bouffi, avec un visage glabre et des dents affreuses dans une bouche épaisse, il parlait lentement et prenait, à s'écouter parler, une joie visible et profonde, mais il parlait divinement. C'était une volupté rare que de le suivre à travers les paradoxes des contes, et un symbolisme immoral et triste. Il improvisait des espèces d'apologues à la manière de Renan. Nous étions sous le charme. Quel étrange et délicieux causeur ![56]

It is not Wilde's physical appearance which endures, but rather his wit and his verbiage. L'habit ne fait pas le moine.

[1] Alfred Douglas, The Chameleon, London: The Eighteen Nineties Society, 1978 [facsimilie of 1894 edition], "Two Loves", p.28

[2] Derek Jarman, Queer Edward II, London: British Film Institute, 1991, p.4.

[3] Jeffrey Weeks, Against Nature: essays on history, sexuality and identity, London: Rivers Oram Press, 1991, p.16.

[4] Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, "The beast in the closet: James and the writing of homosexual panic", Epistemology of the closet, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990, pp.187-188.

[5] Michel Foucault, Histoire de la sexualité: 2, L'usage des plaisirs, Paris: Gallimard [NRF], 1984, p.207. As David Halperin also points out, the current concept of homosexuality is quite different in connotation from the fin de siècle notion of sexual deviance: Throughout the nineteenth century, in other words, sexual preference for a person of one's own sex was not clearly distinguished from other sorts of non-conformity to one's culturally defined sex-role: deviant object choice was viewed as merely one of a number of pathological symptoms exhibited by those who reversed or "inverted," their proper sex-roles by adopting a masculine or a feminine style at variance with what was deemed natural and appropriate to their anatomical sex", One hundred years of homosexuality, New York: Routledge, 1990, p.15.

[6] Grand Robert de la langue française, Paris: Robert, 1985.

[7] "Vice contre nature, amour honteux d'un homme pour un jeune garçon, ou des hommes entre eux", Pierre Larousse, Grand dictionnaire universel du XIX^e siècle, Paris: Administration du Grand Dictionnaire universel, s.d. [1876], v. 12, p. 491. For further comparative discussion on the use of the term pederast in France and Britain consult Christopher Robinson's Scandal in the Ink, London: Cassell, 1995, pp.144-147.

[8] See Claude Courouve, Vocabulaire de l'homosexualité masculine, Paris: Payot, 1985, pp.142-147. Elizabeth Badinter traces the notion of degeneracy in conjunction with homosexuality back to the two doctors: "En 1882, Magnan et Charcot les baptisent "invertis sexuels" et les situent dans le cadre de la dégénérescence", XY de l'identité masculine, Paris: Odile Jacob, 1992, p.155.

[9] According to the Grand dictionnaire universel du XIX^e siècle, [t.14, p.811]: "Le mot sodomie n'est guère employé de nos jours que dans les livres religieux et dans les séminaires; fort usité au moyen âge, il est devenu en quelque sorte mystique et réservé au style ecclésiastique".

[10] Pierre Hahn, Nos ancêtres les pervers: la vie des homosexuels sous le Second Empire, Paris: Orban, 1979, p.41.

[11] Antony Copley, Sexual moralities in France 1780-1980, London: Routledge, 1989, p.105.

[12] Dominique Fernandez, Le rapt de Ganymède, Paris: Livre de Poche, 1989, p.56.

[13] Pierre Larousse, Grand dictionnaire universel du XIX^e siècle, Paris: Administration du Grand Dictionnaire universel, s.d. [1876], t.12, p.492.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Philippe Lejeune, "Autobiographie et homosexualité en France au XIX^e siècle", Romantisme, v.56, 1987, pp.79-80.

[16] Oscar Wilde, The picture of Dorian Gray, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985, Preface, p.22.

[17] For a more detailed discussion of the decadent movement in France see A. E. Carter, The idea of Decadence in French Literature, University of Toronto Press, 1958; Noël Richard, Le mouvement décadent, Paris: Nizet, 1968; Jean Pierrot, L'imaginaire décadent (1880-1900), Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1977.

[18] For further discussion of the conflation of the terms degeneracy and homosexuality in the medical literature of the period consult David F. Greenberg's excellent essay on "Degeneracy theory", in The construction of homosexuality, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1988, pp.411-415.

[19] Joris-Karl Huysmans, A rebours, Paris: Folio, 1988, p.80.

[20] Ibid.

[21] See Jonathan Dollimore, Sexual dissidence, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991, pp.14-17.

[22] J.-B. Baronian, Panorama de la littérature fantastique de la langue française, Paris: Stock, 1978., pp.144. See also G. A. Cevasco "The breviary of the Decadence", Research Studies, 1981, pp. 193-203, for an account of the importance of A rebours in the creation of the decadent movement.

[23] Jeffrey Meyers, Homosexuality and literature 1890-1930, London: Athlone Press, 1977, p.20.

[24] Joseph Bristow, "Wilde, Dorian Gray, and gross indecency", Sexual sameness: textual differences in lesbian and gay writing, London: Routledge, 1992, p.53.

[25] See Jeffrey Meyers, Homosexuality and Literature 1890-1930, London: Athlone Press, 1977, pp.20-31, and also Peter Ackroyd's introduction to the Penguin edition of The picture of Dorian Gray [1985].

[26] Oscar Wilde, The picture of Dorian Gray, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985, preface, p.39.

[27] Dorian Gray, p.135.

[28] Marc Fumaroli, "Préface" in J.-K. Huysmans, A rebours, Paris: Folio, 1988, p.29.

[29] Wayne Koestenbaum, Double talk: the erotics of male literary collaboration, London: Routledge, 1989, p.149.

[30] R. L. Stevenson, The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and other stories, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979, p.84.

[31] Anonymous, Sins of the cities of the plain, New York: Masquerade Books, 1992, p.12.

[32] Richard Dyer, "Children of the night: vampirism as homosexuality, homosexuality as vampirism", in Susannah Radstone (ed.), Sweet dreams: sexuality, gender and popular fiction, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1988, p.47.

[33] Anonymous, Sins of the cities of the plain, New York: Masquerade Books, 1992, pp.7-8.

[34] Wayne Koestenbaum, Double talk: the erotics of male literary collaboration, London: Routledge, 1989, p.165. See also H. Montgomery Hyde's introduction to Teleny, London: Icon, 1966, pp.7-18.

[35] Anonymous, Teleny, New York: Masquerade Books, 1992, p.167.

[36] "You know I'm mad, everyone says so", Teleny, New York: Masquerade Books, 1992, p.175.

[37] Anonymous, Teleny, New York: Masquerade Books, 1992, p.160.

[38] The term "beat" is the Australian equivalent of what is known in the U.S.A. as a "tearoom" and in Britain as a "cottage"; a place frequented by male homosexuals for the express purpose of making sexual contacts.

[39] Anonymous, Teleny, New York: Masquerade Books, 1992, pp.120-121.

[40] Anonymous, Teleny, New York: Masquerade Books, 1992, p.121.

[41] Anonymous, Teleny, New York: Masquerade Books, 1992, p.123.

[42] Paul Hyex, "La Quotidienne", Patrie, 20 décembre, 1922.

[43] Letter to Oscar Méténier in Correspondance, Paris: Baudinière, 1929, p.144.

[44] Paul Hyex, "La Quotidienne", Patrie, 20 décembre, 1922.

[45] See the episode quoted by Georges Normandy, Jean Lorrain intime, Paris: Albin Michel, 1928, pp.133-134. See also Pierre Kyria, Jean Lorrain, Paris: Seghers, 1973, p.29.

[46] J.-H. Rosny Aîné, Torches et lumignons, quoted by Pierre Kyria in Jean Lorrain, Paris: Seghers, 1973, pp.120-121.

[47] P.V. Stork, "Mémorandum d'un éditeur: Jean Lorrain anecdotique", Mercure de France, 15 juin, 1938, p.555.

[48] Henry Bataille, "Jean Lorrain", Excelsior, 28 juillet, 1912.

[49] Rachilde (Marguerite Eymery), Portraits d'hommes, Paris: Mercure de France, 1930, p.91.

[50] Jean Lorrain, Monsieur de Bougrelon, Monsieur de Phocas, Paris: 10/18, 1974, p.51.

[51] Jean Lorrain, Monsieur de Bougrelon, Monsieur de Phocas, Paris: 10/18, 1974, p.69.

[52] Olympe Gilbart, La Meuse, 20 août 1901, quoted by Georges Normandy in L'Art d'aimer, Paris: Baudinière, 1929, p.32.

[53] John Marshall, "Pansies, perverts and macho men: changing concepts of male homosexuality", in Kenneth Plummer (ed.) The making of the modern homosexual, Totowa, N.J.: Barnes & Noble, 1981, p.138.

[54] Marc-André Raffalovich, Uranisme et unisexualité, Lyon: Storck, 1896, p.5. For Raffalovich, the effeminate homosexual owes his condition to a form of impotence: "Quand cette impuissance est précoce et persistante, ou acquise de bonne heure, l'uraniste tendra vers l'effémination, vers la passivité morale, intellectuelle, vers la dégénération et l'imitation baroque de la femme", (p.9).

[55] Jean-Baptiste Baronian, Panorama de la littérature fantastique de la langue française, Paris: Stock, 1978, p.145.

[56] Jean Lorrain, La ville empoisonnée, Paris: Jean Crès, 1936, pp.305-306.