Miasmatic Nature. Industrial Smellscapes and Environmental Pollution in the Poetry of Joris-Karl Huysmans and Emile Verhaeren (1880-1895)

Résumé En

Industrial work directly disturbs the olfactory experience of the natural environment. The presentation will thus show how the industrial development of urban and rural spaces in western Europe deeply affected the literary representation of natural ‘smellscapes’ in late 19th-century French-language poetry. During the second half of the 19th century, the progressive industrialization of western Europe led to the subsequent sensory transformation of natural spaces, in both rural and urban settings. As natural objects (land, vegetation, animal life, bodies of water, etc.) were the first victims of the industrialization process, the sensory experience of the natural environment became tainted by industrial practices, often in the form of noxious fumes or foul gases. Still, while industrial smells threatened the integrity of natural smellscapes, they also allowed for better awareness of natural smells as forms of intangible heritage. As such, poetical writing of the time often uses olfactory descriptions and imagery as potent literary devices to examine the idea of ‘modernity’ itself, its swift and inescapable pace, and how it can endanger vulnerable sensoria, on both aesthetic and political grounds. The presentation will cross close readings of J.-K. Huysmans and E. Verhaeren’s poetical works with medical and historical sources to better demonstrate how collective concerns with industrial smells are not exclusively a matter of workers’ rights and public health. Olfactory pollution and its impact on smellscapes necessarily raises the question of the historicity of our own intangible sensory experiences, as well as their possible conservation through literary means. As the development of industrial work in 19th-century Europe actively participated in the emergence of our current climate crisis, the presentation will highlight how the literary and cultural consideration of ‘working’ smells – whether pleasant or unpleasant – is equally a matter of aïsthésis and politics.