# XIV explained — Against the Grain > Chapter companion for Against the Grain by J.-K. Huysmans. ## What happens Des Esseintes continues his literary analysis, finding himself increasingly dissatisfied with contemporary writers like Victor Hugo, Gautier, and Leconte de Lisle, while reaffirming his deep admiration for Baudelaire and Edgar Allan Poe. He explores the works of Tristan Corbière and Théodore Hannon, and reflects on his evolving aesthetic criteria, preferring works that allow him to escape modern reality and enter into a more artificial, dreamlike state. ## Themes in this chapter ### Aestheticism and Sensuality Des Esseintes seeks literature that offers superfine sensations and artificial pleasures, preferring works that allow him to escape modern reality. ### Disillusionment with Society Des Esseintes shrinks from the realities of life and modern society, preferring books and pictures that avoid contemporary subjects. ### Escapism and Solitude He uses literature to escape the triviality of his own time, wandering in imagination to other epochs or dreamlike realms. ## Character check-ins ### Des Esseintes Continues his literary analysis, expressing dissatisfaction with many contemporary writers and reaffirming his preference for Baudelaire and Poe. ### Charles Baudelaire Des Esseintes considers him the only author whose verses contain a truly balsamic and nutritious kernel. ### Edgar Allan Poe Des Esseintes praises Poe's exploration of morbid psychology and the demon of perversity, finding him a master of induction. ### Victor Hugo Des Esseintes finds Hugo's Oriental and patriarchal side too conventional and empty. ### Tristan Corbière Des Esseintes spends agreeable hours with Corbière's Les Amours Jaunes, appreciating its eccentricity and vigour. ### Théodore Hannon Des Esseintes finds in Hannon a fascinating corruption that corresponds with his own predilections. ## Key lines > for that incomparable painter of pictures had been melting from day to day, and now he was more amazed than delighted before his descriptions, in a way impersonal as they are. His admiration for Gautier had faded; he now found his descriptions impersonal and merely amazing rather than delightful. _Des Esseintes' changing literary tastes._ > Better than any other writer perhaps, Poe possessed those close affinities of spirit that fulfilled the demands Des Esseintes had formulated in the course of his meditations. Poe's work perfectly matched the criteria Des Esseintes had developed through his reflections. _Des Esseintes' high regard for Poe._ > He wanted, in one word, a work of art both for what it was in itself and for what it allowed him to lend it of himself; he wanted to go along with it, thanks to its support, helped on his way by it as if supported by a friend’s arm, as if borne forward by a vehicle, into a sphere where the sublimated stress of sensation roused in him an unexpected commotion, the exact causes of which he would strive long and even vainly to unravel. He desired art that was both intrinsically valuable and open to personal interpretation, one that could transport him to a heightened state of sensation whose origins he could not fully explain. _Des Esseintes' aesthetic ideal._ ## Links - HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/against_the_grain_se/chapters/xiv - Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/against_the_grain_se - All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/against_the_grain_se/chapters