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For a moment, the reader of a European newspaper at the beginning of the third millennium could have had the impression of living in the nineteenth century. Notwithstanding all the signs that pointed to a future that was still to come, it seemed as if history had come at a standstill. On numerous pages of European newspapers, one could see the reappearance of a figure that haunted the literary imagination of the nineteenth century. All of a sudden, European societies witnessed the return of the dandy. The place of his reappearance was perhaps not the place where one would have mostly expected this figure to return. It was neither in the imaginative worlds of European literature, nor was it in the fashionable circles of Paris or London that the dandy reappeared, 1 but in a place of an altogether different sort.
By the end of the twentieth century, the dandy had travelled a long way. From his appearance in literary magazines in the early nineteenth century, the dandy had now walked onto the stage of European politics; a sphere in which he may perhaps seem somewhat out of place. From dandy to dandy-politician makes for a curious transition, because as Charles Baudelaire —one of the great theorists of dandyism—once wrote “a dandy does nothing,” and he immediately added: “Can you imagine a dandy speaking to the people, except to scorn at them? [Vous figurez-vous un dandy parlant au peuple, excepté pour le bafouer?]” 2 More than a century later, these words were echoed by Michel Foucault , who, in one of the very few instances in which he referred to the work of the French poet, wrote that dandyism has no place in “society itself, or in the body politic;” he belongs to “a different place, which Baudelaire calls art.” 3 And yet “dandy” became the name for a new variety of politicians.
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The time in which the dandy reappeared was also a time in which European societies witnessed the upsurge of so-called populist politicians. In Austria, Jörg Haider had great success with his Freitheitliche Partei Österreichs . In France, Jean-Marie Le Pen launched a campaign for the presidential elections. In Denmark, the Dansk Folkeparti became increasingly successful. And in Holland, a bald-headed, former professor of Marxist sociology exclaimed that he wanted to become the new prime minister. Voters seemed to love Pim Fortuyn , the man whose Italian suits, lap dogs, and Daimler with driver attracted the scorn of the establishment. Before he really could rise to power , he was, however, shot by an environmental activist. In the days following the assassination in 2002 a wave of shock went through Europe.
Some French newspapers spoke about the death of “un dandy de l’ultra-droite” known for his xenophobic statements. 4 And one of the headlines in Le Monde read “The murder of the populist leader Pim Fortuyn traumatizes the Netherlands.” 5 Discussing the life of this enigmatic figure, the reporter writes: “Coming from a Catholic background, the doctor of sociology Pim Fortuyn was depicted by some as an intelligent clown, by others as a Polder-poseur, or again by others, as a dandy populist [un dandy populiste].” Italian newspapers wrote about the death of “un dandy raffinato,” 6 “una fotocopia di Le Pen” or about the populist who was a “sociologo-dandy.” 7 One Italian author, Silvia Ronchey, even likened him to Baudelaire. Dandies are not only killed metaphorically, she wrote. With Fortuyn’s death—“un assassino vero”—the death of the dandy obtained “la forza del simbolo.” Although Fortuyn was seen as a dandy—the last dandy—the author maintains that this figure, in truth, could not be a political being. Referring to Baudelaire, among others, she writes: “But no dandy can join a political party, let alone lead it. The dandy disregards and despises power .” 8 And thus it is, according to this author, questionable whether Fortuyn could truly be positioned alongside Baudelaire and Wilde. The doubt in her consideration is telling: Fortuyn could have been a dandy, were it not that he was first and foremost a politician. And politics and dandyism, she maintains, are inconsonant with each other.
Reporters in the UK, like their French colleagues, had less trouble in calling Fortuyn a dandy. The British press dubbed the politician “The Dutch Dandy.” 9 He was depicted as “a shaven-headed dandy with a butler, a Daimler and a penchant for lapdogs, leading a multitude of unhappy, underpaid but outwardly conventional Dutchmen in a cultural war against Islam.” 10 Or as “a flamboyant dandy with impeccable dress sense.” 11 Another author wrote that “Fortuyn’s distinctive quality was his extravagant dandyishness.” 12 Around the same time, the consensus amongst reporters and political commentators extended to the Germanic-speaking parts of Europe, too. There, the Dutch Dandy was compared with other politicians of a similar political orientation. Where the French likened him to Le Pen, and the Italians compared him to Berlusconi , Dutch and German commentators often mentioned his name in the same breath with that of Jörg Haider . German reporters working for Der Spiegel wrote about “dem populistischen Dandy Fortuyn.” 13 Their colleagues at Focus Magazin spoke about the “Polit-Provokateurs Fortuyn.” And the Austrian newspaper Die Presse headlined the day after the assassination: “Ein schwuler Polit-Dandy hat Holland entlarvt.” 14 Of course, in the Netherlands, Fortuyn’s dandyism had attracted the attention of journalists much earlier. 15 They spoke about the appeal of the “charismatische dandy” to so-called protest-voters. And, when he really started to campaign in early 2002, references to the “dandy-politicus” were abound. 16
It appears that a few years after the end of the twentieth century, two terms that did not seem to be consonant with each other came together, as the single name for a new kind of politician: the “dandy-populist,” or, to borrow Helmut Hetzel’s words, the “Polit-Dandy .” 17 It is under this name—The Polit-Dandy —that this study charts the emergence of a political paradigm ; a paradigm that began to arise in the early nineteenth century and only recently received its definitive mark through the return of the dandy. The joining of two, otherwise distinct, terms—dandyism and politics—is an event that challenges the imagination of literary historians, cultural critics and political theorists. For how did this figure that haunted the literary imagination of the nineteenth century come to appear on the stage of late twentieth-century’s politics? Are we witnessing a tremendous semantic shift, which coincides with this figure traveling from the sphere of literary representation to political imagination? Or has this figure perhaps always been a political figure, albeit a very different kind of political figure than today’s professional politician, to use Max Weber ’s terms? Questions like these work in two ways: they force to us to inquire into what is at stake in the present situation; and, they allow one to look again at the history of this figure. Most likely, one is to take this gesture of reporters and scholars seriously: the politics of this “Polit-Dandy ” can really be seen as a form of dandyism. And it may then very well be that other dandies before Fortuyn were no less protagonists of political imaginations than he was. Forked and fractured though it may be, the road that Political Dandyism in Literature and Art charts will eventually lead us to see that there is a politics in dandyism to be found which, in short, is first and foremost a sensuous politics. This is the thesis that the eight chapters of this book seek to unfold: the politics of the Polit-Dandy is a politics of the senses.
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It is a thesis of a somewhat deceiving simplicity. As a quick glance at the corpus of dandy-Forschung reveals, there is nothing self-evident about the conjoining of the two terms, politics and dandyism. And although it was when Fortuyn emerged on the political scene that dandyism and politics got inextricably linked, this was certainly not the first instance in which scholars have observed that the two may have more to do with each other than one would think they do. What is more, a closer look at the historiography on this curious figure will reveal that as soon as scholars came to consider the possibility of a dandy politics, they shied away from its consequences, leaving a gap that this study seeks to fill.
Many early histories of dandyism are based on gossip, satire and other anecdotal sources. Two of the most important of such sources were written in the second half of the nineteenth century. Captain Gronow’s Reminiscences and Recollections, Being Anecdotes of the Camp, Court, Clubs and Society, 1810–1860, which offered “nothing more than miniature illustrations of contemporary history,” 18 proved to be a valuable source for many a cultural historian. Similarly, the two hefty tomes of Captain Jesse’s The Life of George Brummell, Esq. Commonly Called Beau Brummell have left an indelible mark on the history of dandyism. Both works helped to establish the historical account of ‘the prince of the dandies,’ the enigmatic figure of George Brummell. Under the influence of Jesse and Gronow,...