Political firebrand, tireless reformer, champion of the
avant-garde, Octave Mirbeau embraced his role as disturber of the
peace. Inspired by Kropotkin and Dostoyevsky, Mirbeau became the
social conscience of the era, speaking in a clear voice to impugn
capitalist ideology, to defend the cause of the worker, the child,
the pauper, the prostitute, and the soldier sacrificed as cannon
fodder. Mirbeau's critiques of society seethe with indictments of
indoctrinating agencies: the family, which stifled the child's
freedom and expressive creativity, the school, which besotted
students with the aridity of its curriculum, the army, which
privileged patriotism over the sanctity of life, the church, which
sanctified suffering, perverted instinct, and alienated the
faithful from nature. Yet Mirbeau shared the admiration of
fin-de-siecle zealots for the pariahs, tramps, and beggars
rehabilitated in the Scripture. The personal trials of the
misbegotten became an insignia of election. Those marginalized by
society experienced damnation here below yet had glimpses of the
bliss they hoped might await them somewhere higher. Yet it was not
just in the less fortunate that Mirbeau sought evidence of the
supra-rational. Generally neglected by critics, Mirbeau's interest
in the unknown and the inexpressible informed virtually all of his
writing and helped shape his views on artistic work and political
struggle. For this reason, this study sets out to analyze the
spiritual politics of the author. As Mirbeau was becoming involved
in the escalating controversy over the Dreyfus case and cementing
his alliance with prominent anarchists, he was also undergoing a
uniquely personal spiritual evolution. This volume breaks new
ground, exploring the author's secular metaphysic, charting his
investigation of the spiritually transfiguring experience that
redeems man's desolate existence. What begins as Mirbeau's
indictment of Catholicism's death-glorifying ethos, his attempt to
find refuge from life's pain in the blessedness of Nirvana, becomes
a pursuit of mystical diffusion into the community of others.
Showing how Mirbeau controverts the existence of a Christian god,
this study argues that Mirbeau never abandons his exploration of
life's mysteries, apprehensions of the infinite that come from a
refinement of his art and an identification with his brothers.
General
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