Wilde, D'Annunzio e Huysmans

A Rebours had enormous influence on Wilde, which is apparent

in The Picture of Dorian Gray, first published in 1890, six years after A Rebours. Wilde wrote that his novel was a fantastic variation on Huysmans's over-realistic study of the artistic temper in our inartistic age (Letters, 1962). Similarly fascinated with the ornamental and the unnatural, the novel chronicles the life of Dorian Gray who finds that, through some mysterious process, a portrait of him ages while he remains young. That Wilde admired A Rebours is clearly evident in chapter 11 of Dorian Gray. Here, Dorian's life is changed by a mysterious yellow book...a novel without a plot, and with only one character, being, indeed, simply a psychological study of a certain young Parisian...The style in which it was written was a curious jewelled style, vivid and obscure at once. The yellow book is meant to evoke A Rebours, and chapter 11 of Dorian Gray imitates Huysmans's style. Rather than describing Dorian's life, the narrative is suspended and the reader is given detailed passages describing various objects in Dorian's possession.
Concerning D'annunzio and Wilde, do you remember that sentence from Il Piacere (1889) "Bisogna fare della propria vita come un'opera d'arte"? I think it matches perfectly with Doryan's attitude towards life. Dorian -supported by Lord Henry- gets in touch with the pleasures of arts a life and decides to devote himself to all kind of experiences, leaving to the portrait the burden of his misdeeds.
Prof Manno