Nostalgie de la boue


Nostalgie de la boue is the attraction to low-life culture, experience, and degradation, found at times both in individuals and in cultural movements.
The phrase was coined in 1855 by Émile Augier.

Psychological underpinnings

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".
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.

Examples

Classical