Description
Baudelaire's Paris
Book Summary
This volume gathers the central texts of the legacy Walter Benjamin dedicated to Charles Baudelaire, a project originally conceived as part of the monumental Arcades Project. The reader will find here two fundamental essays, "The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire" and "Some Motifs in Baudelaire," which analyze the figure of the lyric poet in the context of the rise of nineteenth-century capitalism. Through a philosophical and critical approach, Benjamin unravels the connections between modernity, the city, and literary work, offering an essential reading to understand both Baudelaire and the transformations of nineteenth-century European society.
What is it about?
Walter Benjamin examines the work of Charles Baudelaire not only as poetic expression, but as a symptom and testimony of an era of profound economic, social, and cultural change. The book is structured around two main essays: in "The Paris of the Second Empire in Baudelaire," the author analyzes how the poet portrays urban experience, the crowd, the commodity, and the figure of the flâneur in a Paris transformed by capitalism. In "Some Motifs in Baudelaire," he delves into recurring themes such as time, memory, allegory, and the experience of shock in modern life. The volume is completed by "Central Park," a collection of fragments and notes that illuminate the philosophical foundation of the essays, and the exposé "Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century," which summarizes the thematic framework of the larger project. It also includes the prologue by Rolf Tiedemann, key to contextualizing these texts.
Main Themes
- The figure of the lyric poet in the age of advanced capitalism.
- The experience of modernity in nineteenth-century Paris.
- The flâneur as a social type and literary figure.
- Allegory and memory in Baudelaire’s work.
- Philosophical and materialist cultural critique.
- The relationship between city, commodity, and poetry.
Who is it recommended for?
This book is aimed at students and researchers of literature, philosophy, and critical theory, as well as readers interested in the work of Walter Benjamin, the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, and the cultural analysis of modernity. It will also be of great value to those who wish to understand the intersections between art, society, and economy in the context of nineteenth-century Paris.
What this book offers
- A deep and original vision of the link between poetry and capitalism in Baudelaire's work.
- Access to key texts of Walter Benjamin's thought, some of them previously unpublished or rarely circulated.
- Conceptual tools to analyze the modern experience from a critical perspective.
- Historical and philosophical contextualization that enriches the reading of Baudelaire's poetry.
- An approach to the unfinished Arcades Project, fundamental to Benjamin's work.
Technical Specifications
- Author: Walter Benjamin
- Publisher: Eterna Cadencia SL
- Language: Spanish
- Subject: Literature and literary studies, Literature: history and criticism
- Collection: Essay
- Binding: Paperback
- Publication Date: November 2012
- Number of pages: 288
- Weight: 385 g
Editorial Review
This edition gathers in an orderly and accessible way the fundamental writings of Walter Benjamin on Charles Baudelaire, offering the reader a privileged gateway to one of the most ambitious projects of twentieth-century critical thought. The inclusion of supplementary materials, such as the "Central Park" fragments and Tiedemann’s prologue, adds extra value to the volume, facilitating the understanding of the philosophical framework that sustains the essays. This is a reference work for those seeking to delve into the relationship between literature, city, and capitalism from a rigorous and original perspective.