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]
The phrase was coined in 1855 by Émile Augier.[2]
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]
[original research?]
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!
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