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A dandy〔"One who studies ostentatiously to dress fashionably and elegantly; a fop, an exquisite." (''OED'').〕 (also known as a beau or gallant) is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and leisurely hobbies, pursued with the appearance of nonchalance in a cult of self.〔''Cult de soi-même'' Charles Baudelaire, "Le Dandy", noted in Susann Schmid, "Byron and Wilde: The Dandy in the Public Sphere" in Julie Hibbard ''et al.'' , eds. ''The Importance of Reinventing Oscar: versions of Wilde during the last 100 years'' 2002〕 Historically, especially in late 18th- and early 19th-century Britain, a dandy, who was self-made, often strove to imitate an aristocratic lifestyle despite coming from a middle-class background. Though previous manifestations of the ''petit-maître'' (French for small master) and the Muscadin have been noted by John C. Prevost,〔''Le Dandysme en France (1817–1839)'' (Geneva and Paris) 1957.〕 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"; nevertheless, the Scarlet Pimpernel is one of the great dandies of literature. Some took a more benign view; Thomas Carlyle in his book ''Sartor Resartus'', wrote that a dandy was no more than "a clothes-wearing man". Honoré de Balzac introduced the perfectly worldly and unmoved Henri de Marsay in ''La fille aux yeux d'or'' (1835), a part of ''La Comédie Humaine'', who fulfils at first the model of a perfect dandy, until an obsessive love-pursuit unravels him in passionate and murderous jealousy. Charles Baudelaire, in the later, "metaphysical" phase of dandyism〔See Prevost 1957.〕 defined the dandy as one who elevates æsthetics to a living religion,〔Baudelaire, in his essay about painter Constantin Guys, "The Painter of Modern Life".〕 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 .... Dandyism is a form of Romanticism. 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 mind." The linkage of clothing with political protest had become a particularly English characteristic during the 18th century.〔Aileen Ribeiro, "On Englishness in dress" in ''The Englishness of English Dress'', Christopher Breward, Becky Conekin and Caroline Cox, ed., 2002.〕 Given these connotations, dandyism can be seen as a political protestation against the rise of levelling egalitarian principles, often including nostalgic adherence to feudal or pre-industrial values, such as the ideals of "the perfect gentleman" or "the autonomous aristocrat", though paradoxically, the dandy required an audience, as Susann Schmid observed in examining the "successfully marketed lives" of Oscar Wilde and Lord Byron, who exemplify the dandy's roles in the public sphere, both as writers and as ''personae'' providing sources of gossip and scandal.〔Schmid 2002.〕 Nigel Rodgers in ''The Dandy: Peacock or Enigma?'' questions Wilde's status as a genuine dandy, seeing him as someone who only assumed a dandified stance in passing, not a man dedicated to the exacting ideals of dandyism. == Etymology == The origin of the word is uncertain. ''Eccentricity'', defined as taking characteristics such as dress and appearance to extremes, began to be applied generally to human behavior in the 1770s;〔Ribeiro 2002:20, under the subheading "Eccentricity, Extremes, and Affectation".〕 similarly, the word ''dandy'' first appears in the late 18th century: In the years immediately preceding the American Revolution, the first verse and chorus of "Yankee Doodle" derided the alleged poverty and rough manners of American-citizen colonists, suggesting that whereas a fine horse and gold-braided clothing ("mac()aroni") were required to set a dandy apart from those around him, the average American-citizen colonists means were so meager that ownership of a mere pony and a few feathers for personal ornamentation would qualify one of them as a "dandy" by comparison to and/or in the minds of his even less sophisticated Eurasian compatriots.〔("Yankee Doodle" ); Maccaroni.〕 A slightly later Scottish border ballad, circa 1780, also features the word, but probably without all the contextual aspects of its more recent meaning. The original, full form of 'dandy' may have been ''jack-a-dandy''.〔''Encyclopaedia Britannica'', 1911]〕 It was a vogue word during the Napoleonic Wars. In that contemporary slang, a "dandy" was differentiated from a "fop" in that the dandy's dress was more refined and sober than the fop's. In the twenty-first century, the word ''dandy'' is a jocular, often sarcastic adjective meaning "fine" or "great"; when used in the form of a noun, it refers to a well-groomed and well-dressed man, but often to one who is also self-absorbed. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Dandy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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