Baudelaire, le poète, l’étranger

L’étrange et l’inconnu reviennent souvent sous la plume de Baudelaire, où ils signalent la présence d’un phénomène ou d’un être digne de l’événement poétique. Or dans sa poésie, dans ses écrits intimes et dans ses essais, la présence de l’étranger en tant que tel est partout et invisible en même temps.Etant donné la vision aiguë de l’anonymat et de la grande ville, la question se pose du statut caché de l’étranger dans cette œuvre liminaire de la modernité. Une lecture suscitée par « L’Etranger », le premier poème en prose du Spleen de Paris, suit les traces de ces personnages énigmatiques chez le grand poète de la modernité parisienne.The strange and the unknown are familiar figures in Baudelaire’s writing; they indicate the presence of a phenomenon or a being that give form to the poetic event. In Baudelaire’s poetry, his intimate journals, and his essays, however, the presence of strangers as such is very difficult to pin down – the stranger is nearly invisible. Given the focused vision of anonymity and the urban environment, the question arises of the hidden status of the stranger or foreigner in the modernity launched in Baudelaire’s writings. A reading catalyzed by «L’Etranger [The Stranger]», the first prose poem in Paris Spleen, traces the path of these enigmatic figures in the work of the great poet of Parisian modernity

Baudelaire et l’art espagnol : poésie, esthétique, critique d’art

Parmi les écrivains français marqués par l'Espagne, Baudelaire, le seul qui resta à Paris, aura consulté les documents des voyageurs comme les œuvres d'art de la Galerie Espagnole dans une perspective singulière. La sensibilité tragique et mélancolique qui habite le modernisme innovateur de Baudelaire va au-delà des considérations de couleur locale. Au fil de ses lectures et de ses promenades esthétiques, Baudelaire développe sa propre pensée, étrangement détachée des stéréotypies d'exotisme ou d'altérité les plus répandues. Sa façon d'accoupler le Beau et le bizarre, qui distingue son esthétique, l'emmène vers l'étrangeté du baroque. En ses qualités d'écrivain et de poète, Baudelaire plonge au cœur de l'esthétique espagnole dans quelques-uns de ses écrits les moins discutés, y compris plusieurs poèmes des Fleurs du Mal.Among writers interested in Spain, Baudelaire seems to have had a singular perspective on documents related to travel in Spain and Spanish works of art. The tragic and melancholic sensibility that characterizes Baudelaire's writing goes beyond considerations of local color. Through his readings and assiduous gallery visits, Baudelaire develops his own thought, strangely detached from widespread stereotypes of exoticism and alterity. His distinctive method of combining the Beautiful and the bizarre leads him toward the strangeness of the baroque. As a writer and poet, Baudelaire goes to the heart of Spanish aesthetics in some of his least-known writings, including several poems in The Flowers of Evil

Extravagances de Baudelaire

La folie, le caprice, le bizarre et l'excès sont des types d'extravagance depuis la Renaissance et le baroque; si le terme est devenu moins fort depuis, Charles Baudelaire le fait revivre dans plusieurs textes poétiques, surtout des poèmes en prose. On sent, chez Baudelaire, la nuance étymologique de l'errance. L'extravagance entre dans l'esthétique du Spleen de Paris, où on la retrouve dans les arts comme dans la vocation de l'artiste. Dans cet essai, je propose d'explorer le domaine de l'extravagance poétique qui prend forme dans les images, dans les personnages et dans la mise en scène de l'esthétique dans plusieurs poèmes en prose.Madness, folly, the bizarre and excess are types of extravagance formulated in the Renaissance and the Baroque. While the notion of extravagance fades away after those periods, the poet Charles Baudelaire revives it in several poetic texts, especially in prose poetry. The etymological resonance of wandering makes itself felt in Baudelaire's writing. Extravagance enters the aesthetics of Paris Spleen, particularly in the portrayal of the arts and in the artist's vocation. This essay proposes to explore the poetics of extravagance that takes shape in fictional characters, poetic images, and the dramatizing of aesthetics in several prose poems

Figures du ‘Cygne’: Baudelaire, l’allégorie, la métamorphose

La métamorphose joue un rôle décisif chez plusieurs personnages évoqués dans “Le Cygne" de Baudelaire. La mémoire, c'est la scène principale – le deuil et la mélancolie sont capables de ramener les figures antiques jusque dans la modernité. Dans ce "tableau parisien", la forme de la ville est en métamorphose: elle s'efface derrière des constructions ou se réduit à l'esquisse – elle ne s'impose comme tableau qu'à travers les souvenirs. Baudelaire construit son tableau poétique en alternant entre le vide et le trop-plein: la terre est sèche comme le désert, le ciel est trop bleu et la mer trop vaste. Depuis les Métamorphoses d’Ovide en passant par le théâtre baroque, l’architecture urbaine et les arts de la modernité, “Le Cygne” évoque la tradition des métamorphoses pour la situer au cœur d’une poé0tique moderne.Metamorphosis shapes several characters in Charles Baudelaire’s great poem titled “Le Cygne [The Swan]”. Memory is the major stage of the poem: mourning and melancholy have the capacity to bring certain figures of antiquity into modernity. In this “Parisian tableau”, the form of the city is in metamorphosis: the old city seems to disappear into new constructions or it is minimized into a sketch. The city appears as a picture or tableau only in the speaker’s memories. Baudelaire constructs a poetic tableau in alternating emptiness and overflow: the earth is dry as the desert, the sky is too blue, the ocean too great. From Ovid through baroque theater, urban architecture, and the arts of modernity, Baudelaire’s swan renews the tradition of the metamorphosis and situates it at the heart of modern poetics

L'étrangeté, l'exil et l'amour chez Beckett

L'oeuvre de Samuel Beckett, c'est un éventail de styles littéraires et de sujets qui résonnent encore parmi les plus actuels. Beckett est porteur d'une modernité engagée, post-moderne pour certains mais surtout ancrée dans l'écriture comme lieu d'une résistance à toute habitude de complaisance subjective. La lecture de Premier amour (1945) montre comment Beckett nous entraine encore, toujours, dans l'étrangeté de l'être et dans la dimension poétique des traversées de langues. Ses jeux de l'autobiographie fictive, depuis le foisonnement et le labyrinthe des premiers romans jusqu'au minimalisme de ses dernières années, marquent l'histoire unique d'un prix Nobel qui remonte à 1969.The styles and subjects of Samuel Beckett's works continue to resonate in contemporary literature and theater: Beckett's modernity is contemporary with current 'post'-modern sensibility. Beckett's radical engagement with modernity is anchored in writing as the site of resisting any habits of subjective self- pity or complacency. A reading of First Love (first written in French, 1945) illustrates the ways that Beckett moves us beyond the predictable, into the strangeness of being and the poetic dimensions of language. From the rich play of language in the labyrinth of his early novels through the minimalism of his later years, fictional autobiography marks the unique history of his Nobel Prize awarded in 1969

L'étrangeté, l'exil et l'amour chez Beckett

The styles and subjects of Samuel Beckett's works continue to resonate in contemporary literature and theater: Beckett's modernity is contemporary with current 'post'-modern sensibility. Beckett's radical engagement with modernity is anchored in writing as the site of resisting any habits of subjective self- pity or complacency. A reading of First Love (first written in French, 1945) illustrates the ways that Beckett moves us beyond the predictable, into the strangeness of being and the poetic dimensions of language. From the rich play of language in the labyrinth of his early novels through the minimalism of his later years, fictional autobiography marks the unique history of his Nobel Prize awarded in 1969

Figures du ‘Cygne’: Baudelaire, l’allégorie, la métamorphose

Metamorphosis shapes several characters in Charles Baudelaire’s great poem titled “Le Cygne [The Swan]”. Memory is the major stage of the poem: mourning and melancholy have the capacity to bring certain figures of antiquity into modernity. In this “Parisian tableau”, the form of the city is in metamorphosis: the old city seems to disappear into new constructions or it is minimized into a sketch. The city appears as a picture or tableau only in the speaker’s memories. Baudelaire constructs a poetic tableau in alternating emptiness and overflow: the earth is dry as the desert, the sky is too blue, the ocean too great. From Ovid through baroque theater, urban architecture, and the arts of modernity, Baudelaire’s swan renews the tradition of the metamorphosis and situates it at the heart of modern poetics

Extravagances de Baudelaire

Madness, folly, the bizarre and excess are types of extravagance formulated in the Renaissance and the Baroque. While the notion of extravagance fades away after those periods, the poet Charles Baudelaire revives it in several poetic texts, especially in prose poetry. The etymological resonance of wandering makes itself felt in Baudelaire's writing. Extravagance enters the aesthetics of Paris Spleen, particularly in the portrayal of the arts and in the artist's vocation. This essay proposes to explore the poetics of extravagance that takes shape in fictional characters, poetic images, and the dramatizing of aesthetics in several prose poems

Baudelaire et l’art espagnol : poésie, esthétique, critique d’art

Among writers interested in Spain, Baudelaire seems to have had a singular perspective on documents related to travel in Spain and Spanish works of art. The tragic and melancholic sensibility that characterizes Baudelaire's writing goes beyond considerations of local color. Through his readings and assiduous gallery visits, Baudelaire develops his own thought, strangely detached from widespread stereotypes of exoticism and alterity. His distinctive method of combining the Beautiful and the bizarre leads him toward the strangeness of the baroque. As a writer and poet, Baudelaire goes to the heart of Spanish aesthetics in some of his least-known writings, including several poems in The Flowers of Evil

Baudelaire, le poète, l’étranger

The strange and the unknown are familiar figures in Baudelaire’s writing; they indicate the presence of a phenomenon or a being that give form to the poetic event. In Baudelaire’s poetry, his intimate journals, and his essays, however, the presence of strangers as such is very difficult to pin down – the stranger is nearly invisible. Given the focused vision of anonymity and the urban environment, the question arises of the hidden status of the stranger or foreigner in the modernity launched in Baudelaire’s writings. A reading catalyzed by «L’Etranger [The Stranger]», the first prose poem in Paris Spleen, traces the path of these enigmatic figures in the work of the great poet of Parisian modernity