Baudelaire and Modernity in Paris
Point B: Les
Fleurs du Mal as a document of Parisian Modernity
Baudelaire published two editions of this poetry collection, the
second in 1861, comprised of 126 poems is the most complete. It
is considered his greatest masterpiece and touches on themes of
love, despair, city, modernity and isolation. It is very much a
coherent work, broken into parts, as the poems were written with
the intention of mutual publication.
The first part, Spleen et ideal, deals first with a definition
of an artist and then his struggle with love. Baudelaire alludes
to his many loves and discusses the cycle of enchantment, to hatred,
and finally a dissatisfaction and peace.
In the second part, Tableaux parisiens, Baudelaire enters
the realm of city. The poems concern a day long flaneuristic journey
through Paris. In his desire to escape the inner torments of love
and isolation, the author turns to the city, but is confronted with
scenes of comparable unhappiness. In one such poem, Le Cyqne,
he describes a swan that is dying in the streets near the Louvre.
The swan is compared both to the author and all who suffer alone
in the city.
The next three sections are concerned with alcoholism, sex, and
finally devil worship. Baudelaire shows here the obsessive extreme
that he has come to in a quest to discover beauty in previously
uncharted realms of city life. None satisfy him, and the final section
concerns his death. Here he continues in the afterlife, searching
for an ideal in increasingly abstract worlds. The work ultimately
portrays a condition of great Modernity in its lack of order and
place. The author is free from classical constraints on his behavior,
and in that condition finds deep longing and infinite Parisian locals
in which to find the elusive cure.
Links
- Thesis Page
- Point A: Modernity and Baudelaire's Personal
History
- Point B: Les Fleurs du Mal as
a document of Parisian Modernity
- Point C: Baudelaire and the Birth of
Impressionism in Painting and Prose Poetry
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