Huysmans et la description dans Sainte Lydwine de Schiedam L'écrivain chrétien aux prises avec le réel

In the nineteenth century, description is, for the Catholic world, the expression of the positivism of the century. The incarnation of the rationalist spirit which limits its analysis to the world of phenomena, it betrays the materialism of the modern world. Huysmans’s ambition to establish an apologetic for strong spirits relies on the will to reconcile realism and mysticism. But this ambition comes up against the ideological taboo constituted by description. Huysmans’s Catholic œuvre is a delicate work of rehabilitation.