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Épater la bourgeoisie or épater le (or les) bourgeois is a French phrase that became a rallying cry for the French Decadent poets of the late 19th century including Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud.[1] It means "to shock or scandalize the (respectable) middle classes".[2]
The expression is first found in a book by French author Alexandre Privat d'Anglemont, a friend of Baudelaire.[3] The Decadent poets, fascinated as they were with hashish, opium, and absinthe, found, in Joris-Karl Huysmans' novel À rebours (1884), an eccentric hero who secludes himself in his house, basking in life-weariness or ennui, far from the bourgeois society that he despises.
See also
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Look up épater le bourgeois in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
References
edit- ↑ Roth. "Decadents & Æsthetes". English. Oshkosh: University of Wisconsin. Archived from the original on 2015-03-25. Retrieved 2007-01-21.
- ↑ "épater les bourgeois", Merriam-Webster OnLine
- ↑ Furió, Vicenç. "Sobre l'origen de l'expressió «épater le bourgeois»". raco.cat (in Catalan). Archived from the original on 2011-05-06. Retrieved 2025-12-03.