Nostalgie de la boue

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Nostalgie de la boue (English: "nostalgia for mud") is a French phrase meaning the attraction to low-life culture, experience, and degradation, found at times both in individuals and in cultural movements. [1]

Contents

The phrase was coined in 1855 by Émile Augier. [2]

Psychological underpinnings

Marion Woodman the Jungian considered that a break or katabasis from the normal social world could leave the protagonist trapped by "a yearning for what I call pig consciousness—wallowing in mud and loving it". [3]

Helen Vendler considered that something of the kind happened to Seamus Heaney when, after a venture in abstraction, he recoiled to ground himself in a material world of mud and dirt. [4]

Examples

[ original research? ]

Classical

Modern

See also

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References

  1. J P Sullivan ed., The Satyricon (Penguin 1986) p. 24
  2. In Act I, Scene I of the 1855 play Le Mariage d'Olympe:
    Le Marquis: Mettez un canard sur un lac au milieu des cygnes, vous verrez qu’il regrettera sa mare et finira par y retourner. (Translation: You put a duck in the middle of swans, you'll see that he will miss his pond and eventually return.) Montrichard: La nostalgie de la boue!
    See also at Encyclopedia.com
  3. M Woodman, The Maiden King (Dorset 1999) p. 179
  4. H Vendler, Seamus Heaney (London 1998) p. 144-5
  5. Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome (Penguin 1966) p. 285
  6. J P Sullivan ed., The Satyricon (Penguin 1986) p. 142
  7. J P Sullivan ed., The Satyricon (Penguin 1986) p. 24
  8. Dylan, Poem to Joannie (Bootlegger [1972]) p. 9-10
  9. J Ames, Essays (2007)
  10. Harper's Magazine (November 1989) https://harpers.org/archive/1989/11/stalking-the-billion-footed-beast