the Dandy
A dandy is a gentleman who applies deep importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with the appearance of nonchalance in a cult of Self. Historically, especially in late 18th- and early 19th-century Britain, a dandy, who was self-made, often strove to imitate an aristocratic style of life despite coming from a middle-class background.
The modern practice of dandyism first appeared in the revolutionary 1790s, both in London and in Paris.
The dandy cultivated skeptical reserve, yet to such extremes that the novelist George Meredith, himself no dandy, once defined “cynicism” as “intellectual dandyism”.
Charles Baudelaire, in the later, “metaphysical” phase of dandyism defined the dandy as one who elevates aesthetics to a living religion, that the dandy’s mere existence reproaches the responsible citizen of the middle class: “Dandyism in certain respects comes close to spirituality and to stoicism” and “These beings have no other status, but that of cultivating the idea of beauty in their own persons, of satisfying their passions, of feeling and thinking …. Contrary to what many thoughtless people seem to believe, dandyism is not even an excessive delight in clothes and material elegance. For the perfect dandy, these things are no more than the symbol of the aristocratic superiority of his mind.”
