‘Vers le sabbat’: Occult Initiation and Non-Normative Masculinity in Jean Lorrain’s Monsieur de Phocas (1901)

Abstract

Although Lorrain has fallen into obscurity in recent years, much like Decadence itself, ‘inferior to the canon from which it has fallen away’, the connections between homosexuality and transgression have generated much discussion by critics of Lorrain’s Monsieur de Phocas, with most agreeing that the author provides us with a homosexual discourse. This article aims not only to reclaim a non-canonical author and text, but to address also the dearth of attention paid to occult overtones that run parallel to the narrative of male homosexuality in the novel, which subvert the traditional (misogynistic) assumption of witchcraft in particular as an exclusively female ‘crime’. I will focus on what I identify as the apex of the narrative – the Witches’ Sabbat – arguing that the representation of witchcraft tropes in the novel links to the presentation of non-normative masculinity through comparable engagement with marginal practices.