El dandy como figura del conflicto por la hegemonía cultural en la crisis de la modernidadNobodies Who Became Somebodies and Gave the Law to Everybody

Abstract

Dandyism played a key role throughout the 19th century, not only as a literary phenomenon, but also as a social and historical phenomenon, encompassing texts from the early 19th century to the early 20th century. During this period, the dandy became a fundamental figure to authors who belong to the canon as major influences on modern European literature. The ubiquity of the dandy in this century of transition to the Contemporary Age, especially if one considers that it exceeds the limits of the merely literary, must necessarily indicate a relationship beyond a literary trope.The aim of this thesis is to present dandyism as an intertextual phenomenon, reproducing a recurrent discourse throughout the 19th century: the identity crisis of the aristocracy. The texts of dandyism emerged from a discourse which criticised the functions of the aristocracy, and originated circa the 17th century, reaching its peak in the 19th century; as a discourse, these texts produce and disseminate this image of the aristocracy throughout the period. Thus, dandyism produces and reproduces a certain image of the dominant aristocracy in the 19th century. However, the figure of the dandy is fluid, appropriating different perspectives, depending both on the author and the period in which it is inscribed...