Idealist Epistemology and the Baudelairean Experience of Modernity

Sven Greitschus studied European cultural history at Bangor and Cambridge before returning to Germany. His research interests included nineteenth-century art criticism, the intersection between politics and aesthetics as well as semiotic code. He now works as a department head at the Federal Employment Agency, where questions of social development and integrity remain of great interest.

• Table of Figures 11Abstract 13Acknowledgements 15Chapter 1Darkness There: Introduction 17Hypothesis 28Methodology 31Trajectory 33Chapter 2Compagnon’s Conundrum: Review of Baudelairean Modernity 41Benjamin, Schizophrenia, dédoublement 45Time, Trauma, Violence 60Le Beau dans le mal: Ethics, Politics, ‘Second Empire Aesthetics’ 65Le Mal 66Le Beau 74Le Beau moderne: Correspondances, Déchéance, ‘Baudelairean Aesthetics’ 102Correspondances 113Déchéance 119La Seconde Révolution: Prose, Poetry, ‘Baudelairean Poetics’ 124La Première Révolution 125La Seconde Révolution 126Part I: Analysis 133Chapter 3The a priori of Experiencing Modernity: A Return to Charles Baudelaire as the First Poet of Modernity 135Perceiving Space and Time: Baudelaire’s Modern Artist and Child 141Walter Benjamin and the First Poet of Modernity 148Fragmented a priori and the Bergsonian Selves 157Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience (1889) 161‘La Chambre double’ (1862): ‘Mais un coup terrible, lourd’ 168Chapter 4The Epistemological Dialectic of Experiencing Modernity: Between Individual and Instant 173Photography, Memory, Imagination—and Happiness 178‘L’Horloge’ (1857): The Engagement with the Instant is Elitist 185‘L’Horloge’ (1860): The Engagement with the Instant is SocioCollective 188Two Forms of Happiness 194Idealist Epistemology in ‘A une passante’ 200Hegelian Dialectic and the Instant as Object Itself 203‘Un éclair … puis la nuit!—Fugitive beauté’ 209Part II: Synthesis 219Chapter 5The a posteriori of Experiencing Modernity: Representing Modern Human Existence 221Exchange, Communication, the Blasé and the Dandy 226‘La Fausse Monnaie’ (1864): Exchange 228‘Les Yeux des pauvres’ (1864): Communication 241‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’ (1903): The Blasé and the Dandy 251Darkness There: Society and Existence from the Viewpoint of Death 259Chapter 6Conclusion to Experiencing Modernity: Les Fleurs du Mal and Le Spleen de Paris 277‘Les Projets de préface’ (posthumously between 1868–1968) 277‘Lettre à Arsène Houssaye’ (1862) 283‘Les Bons Chiens’ (1865) 286Bibliography 295Selected Primary Sources 295Selected Secondary Sources 296Index 307