French Literature Reviews - 2026

Benjamin Gagnon Chainey, Survivances queers des esthètes. De la syphilis au sida
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics

This book offers a pioneering comparison between two turn-of-the-century pandemics: nineteenth-century syphilis and the AIDS epidemic at the end of the following century. Both not only wreaked havoc among their victims but also threw cultural, political, and scientific discourse into disarray, fueling a resurgence of myths and phobias. In fact, the experience of these diseases disorients bodies and theatricalizes their environment. Thus, Jean Floressas des Esseintes—the syphilitic antihero of Joris-Karl Huysmans's cult novel Against Nature—enters into dialogue here with the persona Hervé Guibert assumes in his AIDS-related writings.

Drawing on queer theory, the author examines the concepts of the "symptom" and "survival" (survivance) through the lens of art history, demonstrating how literary works transform pain, illness, and death into unique catalysts for creation, and indeed into works of art. This is an approach where ethics and politics do not eclipse aesthetics.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prologue: Two Pandemic Turns-of-the-Century

Introduction: Entropic, Phobic, and Anachronistic Forces of Syphilis and AIDS

1. Queer Survivals of the Aesthetes

2. Origins, Hysterics, and Sexual Mythographies

3. The Queer Bodies of Des Esseintes and Guibert

4. Heterotopic Settings and Windows: Theaters of Queer Survival

5. What If Dying Were a Queer Art?

Conclusion / Bibliography

Readers interested in the intersections of queer theory, medical humanities, and nineteenth- or twentieth-century French literature may find this comparative study relevant to their inquiries. This book offers a pioneering comparison between two turn-of-the-century pandemics: nineteenth-century syphilis and the AIDS epidemic at the end of the following century. Both not only wreaked havoc among their victims but also threw cultural, political, and scientific discourse into disarray, fueling a resurgence of myths and phobias.

In fact, the experience of these diseases disorients bodies and theatricalizes their environment. Thus, Jean Floressas des Esseintes—the syphilitic antihero of Joris-Karl Huysmans's cult novel Against Nature—enters into dialogue here with the persona Hervé Guibert assumes in his AIDS-related writings. Drawing on queer theory, the author examines the concepts of the "symptom" and "survival" through the lens of art history.