Abstract: This article offers a reading of Les Chants de Maldoror using a camp framework, whereby excessive stylization is favored over authenticity. This framework sheds light on anti-realistic phenomena that are poorly described by terms such as “parody” or “irony.” Les Chants are sometimes considered to be full of lucidity, sometimes to be unbridled: camp is an aporetic category which sometimes seems to be characterized by a desire for mastery, sometimes by unintentional excess.
