1 Jean-Paul Sartres Baudelaire Dissertation I Jean-Paul Sartre first published his controversial study Baudelaire in 1946 after his

magnum opus Being and Nothingness (1943) and most popular novel Nausea (1938). The study garnered harsh criticisms on its publication and in an interview twenty three years later to the New Left Review Sartre conceded himself when asked There is an obvious question raised by your work on Flaubert. You have already written a study of Baudelaire that it was A very inadequate, an extremely bad one1. It was a psychoanalytic study to take Baudelaire out of his 19th Century appreciation as the pote maudit into the poet of 20th Century existentialism and Marxism. Sartres existentialism as established in Being and Nothingness puts emphasis on human freedom of choice and responsibility. As Neil Levy writes: Sartre's overriding concern in writing Being and Nothingness was to vindicate the fundamental freedom of the human being, against determinists of all stripes. It was for the sake of this freedom that he asserted the impotence of physical causality over human beings, that he analysed the place of nothingness within consciousness and showed how it intervened between the forces that act upon us and our actions2 Sartres existentialism is presented as humanism, it is a study of the fundamental freedom of the human being. Its a doctrine of how through the nature of being and nothingness we as human beings have our own free choices to make thus we assert our own freedom through these actions that unveil the nothingness of being. It is also a study in phenomenological ontology, that is to say, it is a philosophical study concerned with the nature of being, as suggested in the title which in full is Being and Nothingness: An essay on phenomenological ontology. It also takes up the study of nothingness which is related to being as again suggest by the use of conjunction in the title. Vincent Descombes explains Sartres concept of being in Modern French Philosophy as: Being has no need whatever of nothingness in order to be conceived of, whereas nothingness, since it is a negation of being, needs being before it can posit itself as its negation3 As Descombes explains nothingness is a negation of being but must have being to come into existence. Conscious beings by recognising nothingness whether through a negation such as arriving at a caf and the waiter who you thought would serve you is nowhere to be seen or from the feeling of anxiety at the responsibility of freedom.

1 2

Sartre, Jean-Paul., (2008). Between Existentialism and Marxism. London: Verso (pg.42) Levy, Neil., (2002). Sartre. One World Publications (pg.111) 3 Descombes, Vincent., (1981). Modern French Philosophy. Cambridge University Press (pg.48)

2 Sartres philosophy of existentialism is an emphasis on the human consciousness, and that this subjective consciousness in recognising the absence of being also recognises a negation of being. Thus in recognising a negation we also recognise our own freedom of choice and our own existence as a human being but to not recognise these is the very essence of what he terms Bad Faith which can also be termed Self-Deception. It is these concepts that are fundamental to Sartres philosophy and study of Baudelaire. The study is an existential psycho-analytic one that uses Baudelaires journals and letters to find recurring images and motifs in his life. The first line of his study of Baudelaire raises the question of his existence: He didnt have the life he deserved. Baudelaires life seems at first a magnificent illustration of this comfortable saying Was his life really so alien to him? Supposing after all that he did deserve the sort of life he had? Supposing that contrary to the accepted view, men always have the sort of lives they deserve?4 Sartre then raises the question using Baudelaire as a case study of his existentialism that we all have the life we deserve; we make our own choices and are responsible for them he terms this Baudelaires original choice of himself. The study carries on following this point and focuses on Baudelaires personal life such as his mothers remarriage that gave him the mortifying discovery that he was a single person, that his life had been given him for nothing5 and that Baudelaires fundamental attitude was that of a man bending over himself bending over his own reflection like Narcissus6. Sartre goes on to say that Baudelaire after realising his own existence wanted to be his subjective consciousness but also to view himself objectively, to be in the metaphor Sartre uses both the subjective wound and objective knife exploring it. The failure of Sartres study is not in the argument it makes of his personal life very convincingly and with unfailing confidence but perhaps was having spoken only of the man and ignored the fact of being a poet7. Susan Blood in her study Baudelaire and the aesthetics of bad faith tackles the question of the studies failure and comes to the conclusion that with the Society of French men of letters demanding a rehabilitation of Baudelaire in the courts in 1946 after the 1857 condemnation of The Flowers of Evil and in 1949 the Supreme Court of appeal officially reversing the decision, she comes to the conclusion that: The recognition of Baudelaire as a national institution and the very symbol of poetry also involved a desire to undo the historical accident of his condemnation, Sartre could not have picked a more volatile moment for his launching an attack on Baudelaire8 Thus she explains along with the fact of him being ignored as a poet a reason for the studies failure it is also the historical context in which it was published. If it is the
4 5

Sartre, Jean-Paul., (1967). Baudelaire. New York: New Directions Paperbook (pg.15) Sartre, Jean-Paul., (1967). Baudelaire. New York: New Directions Paperbook (pg.17) 6 Sartre, Jean-Paul., (1967). Baudelaire. New York: New Directions Paperbook 7 Blood, Susan., (1997). Baudelaire and the Aesthetics of Bad Faith. Stanford University Press (pg.57) 8 Blood, Susan., (1997). Baudelaire and the Aesthetics of Bad Faith. Stanford University Press (pg.58)

3 historical context which led to criticism then the study still has merits but is unfortunate in its timing however if its ignorance to the study of Baudelaires poetry is perhaps the main criticism of this study, so to study the poetry with regards to Sartres writings and existentialism can lead to a greater understanding of Sartres existentialist study of Baudelaire and also the theories of existentialism themselves within the context of Baudelaire. Baudelaires great work The Flowers of Evil (1857) and the posthumously published collection of prose poems Paris Spleen (1869) both lend themselves to biographical readings which is almost inevitable with such a famous personality as Baudelaires however to get a better reading of Baudelaire focus will have to be on the ideas of Sartre in the poetry rather than how his personal reading is reflected in them but that doesnt mean the points Sartre makes in Baudelaire about aspects of his life that can be applied to the poetry will be neglected such as recurring themes like the knife and the wound as Sartre himself propounds in What is Literature? that the key to understanding the nature of literature is to be found in the attitude or intention of the writer9 it would be foolish then to neglect Sartres points on Baudelaires life as it would not be an understanding of Baudelaire within Sartres existentialism to do so. However to submit entirely to a personal reading of Baudelaire would not give a further understanding of Sartres Baudelaire. II The Cambridge companion to Baudelaire has a brief mention of Sartres essay on Baudelaire in which it says that: Sartres 1947 essay on Baudelaire, accusing the poet of mauvaise foi (Bad Faith), recognises the paradox, but utterly fails to explain it.10 The paradox of Baudelaire and Sartres concept of Bad Faith is that of Baudelaires recognition of Bad Faith in his poetry and his acceptance of it in his personal life. Sartre explains it through allusions to the events in his personal life contrasted with his attempts to escape the realities of these dramas. Sartre expounded largely his conception of Bad Faith in Being and Nothingness, it is to live life by defined by ones occupation, social, racial, or economic class, to not transcend situations in order to realize what they are and must be, human and not a waiter, etc. It is explained in the contents of Being and Nothingness as: A lie to oneself within the unity of a single consciousness. Through Bad Faith a person seeks to escape the responsible freedom for Being-for-itself. The responsible freedom for Being-for-itself is the freedom of a conscious being that is conscious of his own subjective existence in relation to the negation of objective
9

Lawler, James., (1976). The existentialist Marxism of Jean-Paul Sartre. Amsterdam: B. A. Gruner Publishing co. (pg.136) 10 Jackson, John E., (2005). Charles Baudelaire, a Life in Writing. In: R. Lloyd, ed. Cambridge Companion to Baudelaire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (pg.1)

4 existence. Thus like Sartre says of Baudelaire it is to know ones condition as human and in Bad Faith seek to escape it. Sartre says in Being and Nothingness that The goal of Bad Faith, as we said, is to put oneself out of reach; it is an escape11 it is to obscure ones existence or hide from it which corresponds with a point made in Baudelaire by Sartre: He was the man who felt most deeply his condition as man, but who tried most passionately to hide it from himself12 Sartre suggests that Baudelaire knew his own condition as a human being, a point he made at the start of the study when he says that Baudelaire made the discovery he was a single person. Sartre also says he tried to hide it from himself which suggests he was unsuccessful in hiding his condition from himself that he was also aware of the existence of it. There are many poems in Baudelaires oeuvre that present the reader with characters who live in Bad Faith, but perhaps the most obvious form of Bad Faith in Baudelaires poetry is through what Sartre terms the Metaphysical Lightness of Baudelaire. This metaphysical lightness can be seen in The Flowers of Evil in poems such as The Albatross and Benediction. It is the myth of the tragic poet that is found in these poems such as in the first stanza of Benediction: When, by an edict of the powers supreme, The Poet in this bored world comes to be, His daunted mother, eager to blaspheme, Rages to God, who looks down piteously13 Baudelaire first talks of the poet coming into this world by an official order of supreme powers which removes responsibility for his own choice of becoming a poet onto some mythical supreme power which sets him up as a tragic poet condemned to be what he is. This myth that is created of the tragic poet is furthered by His daunted mother raging to God for giving her this poet as a child, so he is rejected love as a poet by his mother, he is unaccepted by her and so becomes a condemned figure, but condemned by fate not by his own choices. In the first stanza of Benediction it can already be seen that Baudelaire is creating a tragic image of the poet through Bad Faith, and a lightheartedness with which Baudelaire describes his condemnation and is that which Sartre terms his metaphysical lightness. The poem The Albatross follows straight after Benediction in The Flowers of Evil and deals with the same theme of the condemned poet: The Poet is a kinsman in the clouds Who scoffs at archers, loves a stormy day; But on the ground, among the hooting crowds,
11 12

Sartre, Jean-Paul., (2010). Being and Nothingness. London: Routledge (pg.89) Sartre, Jean-Paul., (1967). Baudelaire. New York: New Directions Paperbook 13 Baudelaire, Charles., (2008). The Flowers of Evil, Trans. James McGowen. Oxford World Classics (pg.11)

5 He cannot walk; his wings are in the way.14 Baudelaire is here saying that the poet is something divine or supreme such as the albatross that belongs in the clouds, scoffing at those who try to shoot him down and loves stormy days. However when the poet is on the ground his wings get in the way which suggests in the modernized city of crowds the poet cannot write or live, he must be like an angel above looking on and scoffing. The mocking of the archers trying to shoot him down also gives the view of himself as someone who is bullied and mocked because of his higher position as a poet. Thus it seems Baudelaire seeks to escape his original choice of himself as a poet and tries to justify his existence which he views himself as tragic by divine right. Susan Blood writes on Bad Faith in Baudelaire that: From Sartres perspective, this conversion is a mark of Bad Faith: the tone of tragic inevitability is indulged in and exploited for aesthetic effect but there is no real inevitability15 She puts forward the view that Baudelaire is exploiting this tragic inevitability that can be seen in Benediction and The Albatross for aesthetic effect which corresponds with Sartres study Baudelaire in which he proposes that Baudelaire lived in Bad Faith but always knew his condition as a man. It is also interesting that one of Sartres issues in the study is with the point in Baudelaires life in which his mother remarried and Sartre says: His terrible logic always summed it up in these words: When one has a son like me like me was understood as one doesnt remarry16 Which makes Benediction seem largely auto-biographical from Sartres perspective as Baudelaire suggests with his mothers condemnation he sought a new justification for his existence which was a poet by divine right thus there was another reason for his condemnation which was the fault of tragic inevitability. It is this maternal relationship that forms what Sartre calls his famous flaw17 which underpins Baudelaires representations of himself as the tragic poet. It is Baudelaires search for meaning and purpose of what he chose of himself and by representing himself as condemned he gives his existence a meaning it therefore would not have been given, for he chose it himself in free will and as a conscious individual. The recognition of freedom and individual existence comes from the recognition of nothingness and it is obscuring this recognition that gives way to an existence in Bad Faith. However to affirm that Bad Faith in present in the poetry of Baudelaire as well as his personal life it must be seen whether we can find the presence of nothingness that which asserts the existential being in his poetry. III
14

Baudelaire, Charles., (2008). BThe Flowers of Evil, Trans. James McGowen. Oxford World Classics (pg.15) 15 Blood, Susan., (1997). Baudelaire and the Aesthetics of Bad Faith. Stanford University Press (pg.62) 16 Sartre, Jean-Paul., (1967). Baudelaire. New York: New Directions Paperbook (pg.17) 17 Sartre, Jean-Paul., (1967). Baudelaire. New York: New Directions Paperbook (pg.17)

Sartres concept of nothingness comes into the world through the Being-for-itself for nothingness doesnt have being and must come into the world through being. Being-foritself is the transcendence of Being-in-itself which is a non-conscious being, so Beingfor-itself is consciousness conceived as lack of being and by bring nothingness into the world the Being-for-itself can stand out from being and judge other beings by knowing what it is not. The way in which nothingness comes into existence is through being and only conscious being which is known as Being-for-itself. Sartre in Being and Nothingness writes that freedom is the human being putting his past out of play by secreting his own nothingness18. This represents his own conception of human freedom and that generally of existentialists that time is of the essence and one must not live in a non-existent past or future but rise into present action of that which exists immediately and now. In Baudelaires poem from Paris Spleen called The Bad Glazier he addresses this rising from inaction to action; There exist natures purely contemplative, wholly unsuited to action, yet which sometimes, mysteriously and inexplicably impelled, act with a rapidity even they would have thought beyond them. 19 This opening paragraph of the prose poem addresses Sartres theory of Bad Faith, the refusal to see oneself as a negation and to attempt to be purely contemplative which in Sartres philosophy means that by recognising negation and their own subjective existence as man but not acting on their existence is to live in Bad Faith. Sartre says that; (Consciousness) in rising to the centre of being, it creates and supports its essence that is, the synthetic order of its possibilities.20 As explained in Being and Nothingness through this rising consciousness which supports essence a human perceives the scope of possibilities thus to be conscious of the existentialist theory of subjective existence one is also aware of the possibilities of action. Baudelaire then goes on to describe what he considers absurd acts such as a man who sets fire to a forest just to see how quickly it will burn and a man who lights a cigar next to a gunpowder keg to see, to know, to tempt fate; to make himself prove his energy, take a risk, experience the delight of anxiety; for no reason, on a whim, to fill the time. It is interesting to the theory of existentialism that Baudelaire uses the phrase the delight of anxiety as Sartre and many other existentialists believe anxiety arises from the negative feeling of human freedom and responsibility. It is because this man stands by the keg of his own will, it is not predetermined by anything else and he is wholly responsible for his action without anything to blame if it goes wrong that he experiences human freedom in the face of nothing. Baudelaire then goes on to explain how one morning like these people he awoke to the idea of doing something grandiose and memorable so he calls a glazier from the street to his room. When he appears he scrutinizes his wares till he leaves cursing.
18 19

Sartre, Jean-Paul., (2010). Being and Nothingness. London: Routledge (pg.15) Baudelaire, Charles., (2010). Paris Spleen. London: One World Classics (pg.15) 20 Sartre, Jean-Paul., (2010). Being and Nothingness. London: Routledge

7 Baudelaire then says he threw a pot from his window at the man raging Make life beautiful, make life beautiful. Baudelaire experiences the nothingness of human freedom, the right to do whatever one wants and in this case it borders on the absurd. The repetition of the line Make life beautiful is an absurd exclamation as he shouts it because the glazier dares to bring clear glass through the poor streets and not colourful glass. It is the very essence of Bad Faith to obscure their own existence with beautiful colours to escape their position rather than see their conditions through reflecting and transparent glass. This recognition of nothingness is also present in The Flowers of Evil Baudelaire writes of objective nothingness, Being-in-itself, in the poem The Gulf. As Sartre argues we recognize our own subjective freedom and consciousness, Being-for-itself, by the recognition of Being-in-itself that which is non-conscious being. However this nothingness is addressed by Baudelaire not as the recognition of his own freedom but as something fearful: Alas! All is abyss all action, dream Desire, speech! And many a time I feel My hair stand up, brushed by the wind of Fear.21 By speaking of an abyss it seems Baudelaire recognizes the existentialist nothingness in existence. However it is a frightening and bewitching space Baudelaire says in the following stanza in the poem which is in direct opposition to Sartres concept of it being something that asserts freedom rather than imprisonment. This fear he describes as: Sleep frightens me, as one feels loathing at A great hole leading who knows where; I see Only the infinite through all windows Its a fear of the lack of an end or meaning in anything that Baudelaire fears. He is inside perceiving the nothingness out of the windows at a distance which is a metaphor that runs parallel to Sartres comment that he was always aware of his existence as a man but tried to hide it from himself. He is suggesting that, not unlike the underground man in Fyodor Dostoevskys Notes from Underground which is often credited as the first existentialist novel that conscious humans are surrounded by lack of reason and that our creation of reason is against human existence which is furthered by Baudelaire claims in the last stanza of The Gulf that: And my spirit, haunted by vertigo, Envies non-being its insentience - Ah! Never from beings, numbers to be free! He states that he is envious of the lack of reason and unconsciousness of the void which is to suggest he would prefer the objective existence of a Being-in-itself which he confirms as he says that Never from beings, numbers to be free! thus he will never be
21

Baudelaire, Charles., (2008). The Flowers of Evil. Oxford World Classics (pg.343)

8 free of reason or a consciousness of existence. Baudelaire recognizes his own subjective existence in relevance to the objective existence that is a negation as Sartre says in Being and Nothingness, Nothingness lies coiled in the heart of being like a worm22. Thus beings all carry their own negations as nothingness needs Being-for-itself conscious existence to recognize it and bring it into existence. It is then wholly accurate of Sartre to suggest Baudelaire knows the existence of nothingness and his own state as a human but wanted to escape or chose to ignore it though it obviously tormented him enough to be consciously existent in his poetry. The very fact of him dealing with nothingness and Bad Faith suggests an inclination to existentialist thought in Baudelaire and though he often mentions religious figures and classic allusions this is perhaps for a different purpose as I will explore. IV Baudelaire proclaims in the poem Heautontimoroumenos from The Flowers of Evil that: I am the wound, and rapier! I am the cheek, I am the slap! I am the limbs, I am the rack! The prisoner, the torturer!23 The proclamation is a metaphor for the subject-object, he is saying if he is the subjective wound he is also the objective rapier causing the wound or exploring the wound, if he is the prisoner locked up and tortured he is also the torturer. These subjective and objective views show Baudelaire trying to transcend his subjective existence and become other than his subjective to be able to view himself and affect himself objectively. Sartre takes issue with this in his study of Baudelaire, and uses his metaphor of the wound and the knife, he says that: If on one hand he was the knife, the pure contemplative look which saw the hurrying waves of the reflected consciousness unfold beneath it, he was also and at the same time the wound, the actual consequence of those waves24 Sartre has obviously taken this from the poem as a metaphor for Baudelaires life but it is not just a metaphor that describes a duel of subjective and objective existence but also between a social self and pure consciousness. Sartre describes Baudelaires subject and object problem in his study as Baudelaires fundamental attitude which is that of a man bending over himself bending over his reflection like Narcissus25. The story of Narcissus is of a man who falls in love with his own beauty in the reflection of the water without realizing it is merely an image thus he is unable to leave the beauty of the reflection and as a result dies. Sartre views Baudelaire like Narcissus, he is the Subject conscious of the Objective and it merely is a reflection of his consciousness but Baudelaire doesnt realize this and believes that the Objective exists as much as the
22 23

Sartre, Jean-Paul., (2010). Being and Nothingness. London: Routledge (pg.45) Baudelaire, Charles., (2008). The Flowers of Evil. Oxford World Classics (pg.157) 24 Sartre, Jean-Paul., (1967). Baudelaire. New York: New Directions Paperbook 25 Sartre, Jean-Paul., (1967). Baudelaire. New York: New Directions Paperbook

9 Subjective consciousness. This is furthered as an image in A Voyage to Cythera from later on in The Flowers of Evil that deals with Baudelaires problem of the subject and the object. In the poem he is on a ship and comes across the sad black island26 of Cythera, and sees a three great stakes where Each creature worked his tool, his dripping filthy beak / Into the bleeding corners of his rottenness. In the poem he empathizes with the victim: Hanged man, ridiculous, your sorrows are my own! ... Along with you, poor devil, dear to my memory, I suffered all the stabs of all the killer crows And felt the grinding jaws of panthers, cruel and black, Who once took such delight in feasting on my flesh He is viewing a hanged dead body with whom he feels to be a kindred fellow in suffering. As the subject perceiving the objective dead body that is brought into existence because he perceives it and recognises it as a negation. Thus he wants to see himself objectively and feels by looking at this body he can see himself: Venus, in you black isle not one thing was erect But the symbolic tree whereon my image hung. Ah, Lord! I beg of you the courage and the strength To take without disgust my body and my heart! It is evident from this last stanza that the character is identifying himself with the objective body which hung from Symbolic tree upon which he calls it my image. Thus we get a character who can be compared with the metaphor of the wound and the knife, he wants to be the image on the gallows, the pure contemplative image but also the person perceiving the hanged body, to take without disgust my body and my heart. In The Flowers of Evil though we also get views that recognise the individual subjective consciousness that can affect what happens objectively but also in isolation can view his subjectivity in relation to the changing objectivity, such as the infamous statement from the poem The Swan: Paris may change, but in my melancholy mood Nothing has budged! New palaces, blocks, scaffoldings, Old neighbourhoods, are allegorical for me, And my dear memories are heavier than stone.27 Here he recognises that Paris will be unaffected without his existence as it is objectively affected by other subjects all the time, building new palaces et cetera. His subjective existence that is contemplating his dear memories which is an escape from the Paris of the present that he is not affecting, it is a contemplation of that which is past that which is

26 27

Baudelaire, Charles., (2008). The Flowers of Evil. Oxford World Classics (pg.257) Baudelaire, Charles., (2008). The Flowers of Evil. Oxford World Classics (pg.175)

10 now a memory. Thus he tries to escape the recognition of his freedom to act on the objectivity of Paris and ponders his dear memories instead. These are existential problems that Baudelaire is dealing with that of how to be oneself and to how to view ones existence. He tries to escape his own existence to view himself objectively and sees that his consciousness recognises the objective change of Paris. He stares at his reflection and sees its objective existence is something apart, negative and only as existent through his subjective consciousness however Paris exists as a concrete negation that changes but as Baudelaire says Nothing has budged!, thus it is still a negation that in its essence is a nothingness. His constant recognition of outside figures with himself is another attempt of Baudelaires to see his existence as other such as when he perceives what he believes to be his own image in A Voyage to Cythera. These ideas of the outside figure to view himself also ties in with the myth Baudelaire creates through his metaphysical lightness of the tragic poet. The attempt of Baudelaire to objectively view oneself is the reason for his Bad Faith as he is trying to escape his subjective existence to create himself and the poems he writes could be seen as an attempt by Baudelaire to create himself with his myths of the tragic poet but also show his recognition of nothingness and his attempts to escape his own existence in the poems. V It is no coincidence that the figure of Baudelaire became the object of study for the two great Marxist thinkers in Paris in the 20th century that is Jean-Paul Sartre and Walter Benjamin. Benjamin was in Paris in the 1930s and it is a great shame he never lived to see the publication of Sartres Being and Nothingness or his study Baudelaire as it would of made for some great debates and even perhaps some reconciliation of ideas. Benjamin has many works on Baudelaire of which perhaps the most famous is On some motifs in Baudelaire from the collection Illuminations. Walter Benjamins conception of Baudelaire is that of the modern man in the city, the flneur, who is a member in the modern crowd but never disintegrates into it. He is always standing out defiant against the faceless and consuming crowd like the dandy clad in the most fashionable wares and strolling slowly through the street against the rush of the crowd. The flneur for Benjamin is also a Marxist concept because he is wearing the most fashionable clothes which is the epitome of commodity production and he thinks of himself of the last expert consumer however it is an attempt to stand out against the uniformity of the crowd. Also the strange and idle gait of the flneur has its political meaning in Benjamin as if time is money he is a rejecting of the hurry and work of the crowd as he aimlessly wanders seeking diversions but also fighting against the city life of the multitudes of bourgeois. As Graeme Gilloch writes in his study of Walter Benjamin and the city that: There was the pedestrian who wedged himself into the crowd, but also the flneur who demanded elbow room and was unwilling to forego the life of the gentleman of leisure28
28

Gilloch, Graeme., (1996) Myth and Metropolis: Walter Benjamin and the City. Cambridge: Blackwell (pg.153)

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This is the attempt at individuality of the flneur to not be a pedestrian but to demand elbow room, be apart from the masses and also he speaks of the defiance to forego his life to be another rushing pedestrian or worker. It can be seen as an attempt to be individual and external to the crowd which negates individuality and the self. In the crowd of the metropolis where identities are lost as everyone rushes searching for a space in which to avert the gaze of other pedestrians and everyone is rushing to work or to buy products of commodity it is hard to be apart and to know oneself which is an issue dealt with by Sartre as existentialism is an assertion of human freedom and individual existence in modern life. Many critics have noted Benjamins theory of allegory and commodity in the city. Marxist critic Terry Eagleton in his book Walter Benjamin argues that: Translated to the city, however, this eternal moment of the symbol, the hallowed space scooped out of time, is also the vacuum through which other such moments may metonymically rush, each casually effacing itself for the next29 Thus he explains that like the sign in the city, the meanings of allegory in Baudelaire take on multitudes of meanings which will lose the inherent meaning of a symbol and it becomes hollow. Benjamin writes similarly of Baudelaires poetry that: The fashions of meaning changed almost as quickly as the price of commodity changed. In fact the meaning of commodity is: price; as a commodity it has no other. Thus the allegory is in its element with the commodity It then takes on its political meaning and relation to capitalism as the allegories become as hollow and as meaningless as the commodities that are produced without need or meaning but are consumed in the city. The loss of individuality and of meaning lends itself to an existentialist reading as it is a philosophy of the individual however the opposition of Benjamins flneur who is idle and loses himself in the crowd eventually and the free man of Sartres Being and Nothingness form a basis for an argument of Baudelaire. Both Sartre and Benjamin use Baudelaire as a subject and epitome of the modern Paris. Sartres Baudelaire lives in Bad Faith, his poetry shows principles of existentialism and he knows his own condition as a man but Benjamins Baudelaire is the flneur in defiance of the crowd and commodity and his poetry shows the commodity of the city which he himself felt in Paris. The parallels which can be drawn between the two Baudelaires such as the emphasis on his individuality from the crowd which they both mention in studies such as when Sartre says in Baudelaire that: Baudelaire only had relations with himself: he remained as solitary as the child who masturbates30
29 30

Eagleton, Terry., (2009) Walter Benjamin or Towards a Revolutionary Criticism. London: Verso (pg.27) Sartre, Jean-Paul., (1967). Baudelaire. New York: New Directions Paperbook

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However Benjamin also believes the crowds participation in the life of the flneur is as important in Baudelaire than his solitary position from it: As regards Baudelaire, the masses were anything but external to him he becomes their accomplice even as he dissociates himself from them. He becomes deeply involved with them, only to relegates them to oblivion with a single glance of contempt31 Thus we get the two Baudelaires in Sartre and Benjamin, the man who lived in Bad Faith and the flneur. Baudelaire who was internally trying to see himself with an external gaze and the man trying to retain his internal self against the external influence of the crowds. Through an analysis of these two different views and philosophies of Baudelaire in his poetry we should be able to create an argument which can reach an greater understanding of the 20th Century Baudelaire through the two Marxists studies of Baudelaire. VI In his essay On some motifs in Baudelaire Walter Benjamin analyses the poem To a Woman Passing By which he says depends upon the crowd like a sailboat depends upon the wind however the crowd is never mentioned but the whole happening hinges itself on it: Around me roared the nearly deafening street. Tall, slim, in mourning, in majestic grief, A woman passed me, with a splendid hand Lifting and swinging her festoon and hem32 Here in the first stanza of the poem we get a street roaring which gives the impression of bustling crowds without directly mentioning them as is said by Benjamin. However the most curious aspect is the passing woman in majestic grief with a splendid hand / Lifting and swinging her festoon and hem like flneur she stands out immediately with her strange gait and grief. This woman it seems is apart from the crowd, she has an intoxicating image in the crowd of unknowable and meaningless faces and retains an image of individuality. However its voyeuristic tone is heightened by the fact that her veil means she can see him but he cant see her face which suggests that he cannot know her but also that perhaps she can know him which is another metaphor for Baudelaires attempt at viewing himself objectively, he views himself trying to view this woman. The recognition of this woman is also in Sartres philosophy a recognition of being and negation as the crowd is a negation of being as it is unknowable and an objectification that is perpetually moving and changing without seeing its own nothingness and negation of meaning thus the recognition of a womans face showing

31 32

Benjamin, Walter., (1999) Illuminations. London: Random House (pg.164) Baudelaire, Charles., (2008) The Flowers of Evil. Oxford World Classics (pg.189)

13 grief shows a conscious being perhaps conscious through grief of nothingness thus she is apart from the crowd. The last two stanzas of the poem suggest a negation: One lightning flashthen night! Sweet fugitive Whose glance has made me suddenly reborn, Will we not meet again this side of death? Far from this place! too late! never perhaps! Neither one knowing where the other goes, O you I might have loved, as well you know!33 The sense of loss that is perceived in these stanzas is almost akin to mourning which is due to the references to being reborn and meeting this side of death. This is a recognition again of a negation of being which comes about in the city crowds as she has gone and disappeared with Neither one knowing where the other goes that he feels a sense of loss as a being she has gone out of existence in relation to him so all he perceives is the nothingness in the place of which she occupied before. This is the very idea that the flneur perceives as he walks about the city avoiding the negative crowds and trying to retain a sense of individuality like the woman Whose glance had made me reborn. It is also interesting that they do not speak at all in the poem which raises questions of the reasons why, perhaps it is because of social class, she is mourning or that it would be pointless to speak to a respectable woman. This shows Baudelaires awareness of the political aspect of class in the city and he presents a figure almost like the flneur whom he cannot talk to which suggests again the political context of the flneur as somebody out of the norm, unapproachable and above the banal city existence. The flneur in a sense tries to attain identity that through its recognition of the nothingness of the crowd and being realizes his own individual existence. However the extent to which the flneur and Sartres philosophy agree is not as straight forward as so far perceived, it is noted by Gilloch that: The true hero of modernity does not merely give form to his or her epoch or simply endure it, but is both scornful and complicitous34 He also suggests that: The flneur is a true hero of modernity because he is no hero at all, only a player at heroism, an idle dreamer destined for a rude awakening35 Thus Gilloch says that the flneur is both scornful and complicitous in his epoch and he is only playing a hero, he is an idle dreamer, thus he is part of what he pretends to not be part of. This brings to mind the quote from Benjamin that He becomes deeply involved with them, only to relegate them to oblivion with a single glance of contempt,
33 34

Baudelaire, Charles., (2008) The Flowers of Evil. Oxford World Classics (pg.189) Gilloch, Graeme., (1996) Myth and Metropolis: Walter Benjamin and the City. Cambridge: Blackwell (pg.150) 35 Gilloch, Graeme., (1996) Myth and Metropolis: Walter Benjamin and the City. Cambridge: Blackwell (pg.157)

14 which is an obviously different point of view from Sartres that he was as solitary as the child who masturbates. Where Benjamins Baudelaire is losing himself in the crowd and pretending to be individual but is really an idle dreamer such as the character in A Woman Passing By who perceives a woman as an individual but then she is swept away into nothingness. However this is close to Sartres Baudelaire of Bad Faith as Baudelaire as the flneur in Walter Benjamin is living in Bad Faith, is it not recognition of Bad Faith when Benjamin suggests he is hiding his existence from himself. But the existence he is hiding from is that of the crowd of commodity, that mass of humans which he himself through his striving for individuality will be swept up in however Sartres philosophy is a stress on the individual existence, apart from the crowd of negation and rising to action is their own freedom. So the character of Baudelaire in Benjamin is sinking into Bad Faith in trying to be individual, in being the flneur both idle and fashionable, a form of commodity, not recognising his own freedom of choice and by not recognising the crowd as an affirmation of his own being he will not rise from Bad Faith. Walter Benjamin though seems much closer to Baudelaires poetry than Sartre, as Sartre writes in Baudelaire that: Baudelaire never believed completely in anything he thought or felt, in any of his sufferings or in any of his gritty voluptes36 The problem here is that Sartre using his philosophy tars the whole of Baudelaires poetry with the same brush with a sweeping statement suggests that there was no feeling or thought in his allusions to prostitutes, beggars etc but just an attempt to escape his own existence. When we look at Benjamins analysis of the same things in Baudelaires poetry his suggest that they shows the commodity of existence that he recognised in the city. This allegorical method of allusions to prostitutes is because as Benjamin says: Prostitution can legitimately claim to be work, in the moment in which work itself becomes prostitution37 To Benjamin the prostitute is the incarnation of the commodity of the capitalist world, a very Marxist view point that you cant help but think Sartre would agree with however his sweeping statements and neglect of Baudelaire as a poet serve to discredit his poetical criticisms. VII Jean-Paul Sartres Baudelaire from his study is one whom is steeped in the Bad Faith that Sartre proposes in Being and Nothingness but also he recognises the existential problems of existence such as the feeling of anxiety or transcending a subjective existence. Sartres study leads to a foundation upon which to seek out the ideas in Baudelaire poetry which I have tried to do and I hope it is clear that Sartres existentialism can be read in the poetry.
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Sartre, Jean-Paul., (1967). Baudelaire. New York: New Directions Paperbook Gilloch, Graeme., (1996) Myth and Metropolis: Walter Benjamin and the City. Cambridge: Blackwell (pg.163)

15 Perhaps then Sartre has a very important point when he states throughout his study that Baudelaire always knew his position as a man and that he tried to hide from it. Maurice Blanchot asserts when writing his great article on Sartres Baudelaire that: Sartres demonstration is very impressive and, as a whole quite fair but we accept them (Baudelaires bad faith etc.), as we must, we must accept another, which Sartre neglects: it is that Baudelaire also deserved les fleurs du mal, that the life responsible for his bad luck is responsible for this signal good fortune, one of the greatest of the century38 Thus Blanchot makes an important point that through these existential problems seen in Baudelaires poetry and the accusations aimed at him, it is through these accusations Sartre found him guilty and led to the poetry of The Flowers of Evil. There can be some reconciliation of idea between Sartre and Benjamins Baudelaire though as both their Baudelaires are struggling with modern existence, what it is to be subjective in the city life of the 20th century, how can one know ones self in the capitalist consumption of Paris. It is these questions that both Sartre and Benjamin argue and tussle with in their studies and it is perhaps the great question of Baudelaire how does one know ones self in the modern city? And it is this question that gives birth to Benjamins Marxism and Sartre Existentialism. This should prove the relevance of Sartres study and the opinions of Baudelaires personal life he held are incredibly insightful. The evidence that abounds for the study of his personal life juxtaposed with his poetry the correlations and reflections are many and add another interpretation of Baudelaire. The study takes him out of his comfortable position as the pote maudit of the 19th Century and into Sartres existential analysis that focuses away from the context of history into him as poet and a person. Taking these points from the study and putting them to his poetry yields more evidence of his Bad Faith and awareness of his condition as a man. However perhaps it may be said that Benjamins Baudelaire is closer for Benjamin wrote more of the poet, his study of the flaneur was received well and is generally accepted as one if not the great reading of Baudelaire. Though I believe from what I have shown that in fact Benjamins Baudelaire is close to Sartres Baudelaire, they may disagree at times but strongly agree at other times. Where Benjamins Baudelaire fails Sartres can succeed and vice versa. To reconcile the Psycho-analytic study with the theoretical Marxist study leads to a clearer and more rounded modern study of Baudelaire that is perhaps the most modern and true to existentialism. Richard King Word Count: 7, 233

38

Blanchot, Maurice., (1995) The Work of Fire. Stanford University Press (pg.132)

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Bibliography Books Baudelaire, Charles., (2010). Paris Spleen. London: One World Classics Baudelaire, Charles., (2008). The Flowers of Evil, Trans. James Mcgowen. Oxford World Classic Benjamin, Walter., (1999). Illuminations. London: Random House

17 Blanchot, Maurice., (1995). The Work of Fire. Stanford University Press Blood, Susan., (1997). Baudelaire and the Aesthetics of Bad Faith. Stanford University Press Descombes, Vincent., (1981). Modern French Philosophy. Cambridge University Press Eagleton, Terry., (2009). Walter Benjamin or Towards a Revolutionary Criticism. London: Verso Gilloch, Graeme., (1996). Myth and Metropolis: Walter Benjamin and the City. Cambridge: Blackwell LaCapra, Dominick., (1993). A Preface to Sartre. Cornell University Press Lawler, James., (1976). The existentialist Marxism of Jean-Paul Sartre. Amsterdam: B. A. Gruner Publishing co. Levy, Neil., (2002). Sartre. One World Publications Sartre, Jean- Paul., (1967). Baudelaire. New York: New Directions Paperback Sartre, Jean-Paul., (2010). Being and Nothingness. London: Routledge Sartre, Jean-Paul., (2008). Between Existentialism and Marxism. London: Verso Journals Roberts, David., (1989). Baudelaire and Hamlet. Review of English Literature (56), pp.128. Websites Trigg, Dylan., (2011). Side Effects, [Online] Available at:< http://sideeffects.blogspot.com> [Accessed 22 June 2009].

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