À rebours, roman de la délectation morose

À rebours presents itself, to take up Kenneth Burke’s terminology, as the novel of an attitude, in which action seems almost absent. This attitude, that of the hero, can be compared to delectatio morosa from the Catholic tradition. By engaging in aesthetic contemplation to escape his past, Des Esseintes believes he can emulate the hermits of the third or fourth century: in reality, he merely imports his former attitude into his personal “Thebaid.”