Le (dé)montage impie des sens chez Villiers de l’Isle-Adam

This article analyses the narrative and formal measures which Villiers de l’Isle-Adam used in his texts to distort the message of a literary work, thereby leaving the reader uncertain of the œuvre’s final sense. Villiers developed the peculiar esthetics of reversion, which is not only based on the transformation of well-known motives and the merciless destruction of the traditional value system, but also exists on the level of paratext and language itself. Providing texts with a dedication and a motto or a seemingly nonessential sentence in the end allows Villiers to transform the nascent sense and makes it ambiguous. By these measures, the writer makes so-called “unbelievable parables,” the sense of which is formed and deformed, and as a result must evade the reader. The language of characters and moments of silence, which are opposed to logorrhea connected with laughter, play a very important role in this process. Therefore, this article shows the ways which are used to veil or even hide the true intentions of the author.