Le Dandysme littéraire en France au <scp>xix</scp> ^e siècle <i> Le Dandysme littéraire en France au <scp>xix</scp> ^e siècle </i> . By K <scp>arin</scp> B <scp>ecker</scp> . (Références, 25). Orléans: Paradigme, 2010. 188 pp. Pb €19.00.

Karin Becker's study offers a concise history of dandyism in French literature throughout the long nineteenth century. It seeks to contribute to the growing critical literature on dandyism, which now includes a broad rage of studies undertaken from various disciplinary viewpoints. The book's methodology can be regarded as somewhat conservative, though, for it does not engage with work undertaken in other disciplines; moreover, it relies mainly on a chronological approach that consists in reviewing both canonical texts and the biography of their respective authors or of the historical dandies to which such texts refer. In keeping with most studies, the author begins by locating the origins of dandyism in Regency social practice. Becker's account innovates as it foregrounds the relations between literature, art, and dandyism that were already in place in this early stage of the tradition, particularly in the work of Lord Byron and Alfred d'Orsay, two practitioners who allow her to eschew the traditional oppositions between social and literary varieties of dandyism, and between English and French embodiments thereof. The author then proceeds to retrace the continental migration of literary dandyism, to analyse the theory of dandyism in the work of Barbey d'Aurevilly and Baudelaire, and to explain the waning of dandyism in fin-de-siècle decadence. In each case Becker analyses texts that either explicitly portray dandies or that espouse a form of dandified writing (‘un style dandy’). Her analysis of the latter approach, however, does not sufficiently discriminate between dandiacal writing strategies and protomodernist forms of reflexivity. In this light, it is unfortunate that the author does not address some key contributions to the study of dandyism, in particular Sima Godfrey's groundbreaking article ‘The Dandy as Ironic Figure’ (Sub-Stance, 36 (1982), 21–33). Godfrey's approach would have afforded Becker a theoretical framework to rethink what she calls ‘le style dandy’ and, therefore, to distinguish dandiacal reflexivity from that prevailing — contemporaneously — in English and German romanticism. Becker does rely a great deal on the secondary literature (which she masters), and her study has the merit of referencing German texts not usually cited. However, it does not contribute new insights on source material (for instance, references to Captain Jesse and William Hazlitt are mediated by texts penned by other authors). Nonetheless, one of her chief contributions resides in her reading of Chateaubriand. While paying heed to Baudelaire's contention that the latter was one of the founding figures of literary dandyism in France, Becker argues convincingly for a reappraisal of Chateaubriand's œuvre as a stylized writing of the self. The book's chief weakness lies in its attempt to correlate the psychological character of the authors involved with their respective theories and embodiments (both literary and social) of dandyism. Such an approach is both theoretically unconvincing and methodologically unsound. These shortcomings notwithstanding, this short book succeeds in providing a concise overview of the entire dandy tradition without sacrificing detail to brevity. It will be of great interest to any student of the subject.

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