L’essai sur le dandysme est-il un essai dandy ? Du dandysme et de George Brummell de Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly

This article seeks to reveal the ambiguity of the Aurevillien essay through an analysis of the strange style of this half-scholarly, half-anecdotal work. Barbey replicates the bizarre nature of dandyism by enticing the reader into a consciously-constructed game : on the one hand, he poses as a historian, analysing dandyism as a historical phenomenon ; on the other, he acts as a moralist, seeking to prove that there is profundity in the dandy’s doctrine.