OPEN

[philosophe]

Characters: Combeferre, Enjolras, Jehan Prouvaire, Grantaire, and YOU probably!
Date: February 23
Location: A smallish cafe in the Wood sector!
Situation: Discussion of politics and philosophy and culture and possibly shenanigans, we never can tell with these guys.
Warnings/Rating: ...UH. G, maybe PG? Idek what they'll talk about.



[The cafe wasn't too far from their various tree-houses, reasonably priced and in a place where it could be easily found by passers-by. They had adopted it once they had all felt well enough to go wandering about their new home, it was comfortable and pleasant and very nearly reminded Combeferre of home. Certainly it would never be quite the same as the Musain, and he did not expect it to be.

But it would do, for now. So for the moment, he is quietly ensconced with his friends in a back corner. They are discussing things amongst themselves, waiting to see if anyone will accept Enjolras' offer and join them. Hopefully, this wouldn't turn out as horribly as Marius' introduction to Les Amis de l'ABC. That would remain to be seen. Suffice to say, if Combeferre recognizes anyone, he will be waving them over with a welcoming grin.]

Comments

[depicted]

[Ah, how to put this delicately?]

They seemed to have some philosophical harmonies.

[poeticverses]

Cynicism?

[depicted]

To say the least. It is the beauty that I prize Baudelaire for.

[poeticverses]

Grantaire will love it. If nothing else he will find away to rip his work apart and mock it with a gusto. I apologize.

[depicted]

You don't need to. For some reason, all my closest companions disagree with me about my favourite authors. [Henry doesn't appreciate Oscar and Toby doesn't appreciate Huysmans. It's hard being Dorian!] I'm more than accustomed to that kind of conversation.

[poeticverses]

As am I. It is tiresome, sometimes, being the only Romantic in a group.

[depicted]

Are none of the others inclined to Romanticism? I would have thought at least your polymath might be. [He means Combeferre. That boy seems like he goes after every kind of knowledge.]

[poeticverses]

I am the only one with any inclination to it. If Combeferre is prone to it, he's not told me.

[depicted]

That is a shame. Of the French Romantics, I only know a little—Hugo and Gautier, mainly. I'm more familiar with those who followed.

[poeticverses]

You mentioned Symbolism?

[depicted]

Yes, that's the name they usually used for themselves. They had some of the romanticism of their predecessors. Less focus on morality, more on aesthetics: l'art pour l'art the battle cry we took from Poe and Gautier. [Dorian doesn't notice the pronoun shift he fell into using.] Dreams, ideals, and I guess a certain sense of being accursed, cast out from society. Well, many of them were. Less of nature, more of the city, the irrational, dissolution, artifice. Artifice above all, really.

[poeticverses]

[He catches it, but doesn't say it. He does frown a bit at it, though]

Where Romanticism wanted to separate from the city, Symbolism saw it as a source of inspiration. Interesting. I would not have expected that to follow, though I suppose it makes a certain amount of sense. It sounds very...

[He gestures in that way people do when they can't think of a word know there is one]

[depicted]

[Dorian waits for the word, but at the gesture, smiles.] It was certainly very. They were at times called 'Decadents,' though most rejected the label.

[poeticverses]

Decadent, that was the word I was looking for. I can see why they rejected the label, of course. It makes them sound terrible and I am sure most weren't.

[depicted]

A few of them were a little volatile, and there was that shooting with Rimbaud and Verlaine—but even if they were often unhappy, some among them were wonderful personalities. In the English school, Oscar Wilde had, I think, the most beautiful soul I've ever known.

And others like Bosie were miserable, petty, awful creatures, but then he was also a third-rate poet and really doesn't deserve to be remembered.

[Dorian feels Very Strongly about certain Aesthetes.]

[poeticverses]

When did you say this movement started? I do not recognize any of these names.

[And "I've ever known"?]

[depicted]

Ah, right. Late 1850s, perhaps, in France? Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal was 1857, but it really came into its height in the 1880s, 1890s. Fin de siècle. Swinburne brought it over to England in the late 1860s with his Poems and Ballads, but like their French counterparts, the English school came into prominence in the last two decades of the century.

[poeticverses]

Much later than my time, then. You knew this Wilde, though?

[Because you don't look 19th century]

[depicted]

[Dorian does not even think it strange to answer in the affirmative. His time here has made him horribly lax about hiding who and what he is.]

He was a good friend. I think you would've liked him, really. Not all of that group were agreeable in personality, but Oscar was a good man as well. Compassionate, I suppose, is the word.

[The fondness is unmasked. Dorian really cared for Oscar and genuinely believes in the goodness of his soul, however the world might have cried out against him.]

[poeticverses]

You are from the 19th century, then?

[He doesn't look like it.]

[depicted]

[Dorian is missing any questioning there.] Yes, I was born a couple of decades after you all were brought here.

[Meaning the 1850s about, and yet he, looking more than twenty, refers to events in the 1890s. He has gotten very careless indeed.]

[poeticverses]

And you...witnessed the rise of English Symbolism?

[Trying to indicate that you're not making sense!]

[depicted]

[You're going to have to try harder, Jehan. Dorian is very happy talking about art.] Not in its entirety, but I did get to enjoy most of the rise and fall, or rather the transformation into the Imagists that came after—H.D., T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound.

[poeticverses]

You look remarkable for forty, then.

[He hates being blunt, but he has to know]

[depicted]

[That cuts through. Dorian pauses a moment before laughing.] As it happens, I am a little older than I look.