Grotesque Figures : Baudelaire, Rousseau, and the Aesthetics of Modernity

Virginia E Swain

ISBN 10: 0801879450 / ISBN 13: 9780801879456

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press Okt 2004, 2004

About this Item

Neuware - Charles Baudelaire is usually read as a paradigmatically modern poet, whose work ushered in a new era of French literature. But the common emphasis on his use of new forms and styles overlooks the complex role of the past in his work. In Grotesque Figures, Virginia E. Swain explores how the specter of the eighteenth century made itself felt in Baudelaire's modern poetry in the pervasive textual and figural presence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Not only do Rousseau's ideas inform Baudelaire's theory of the grotesque, but Rousseau makes numerous appearances in Baudelaire's poetry as a caricature or type representing the hold of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution over Baudelaire and his contemporaries. As a character in 'Le Poème du hashisch' and the Petits Poèmes en prose, 'Rousseau' gives the grotesque a human form.Swain's literary, cultural, and historical analysis deepens our understanding of Baudelaire and of nineteenth-century aesthetics by relating Baudelaire's poetic theory and practice to Enlightenment debates about allegory and the grotesque in the arts. Offering a novel reading of Baudelaire's ambivalent engagement with the eighteenth-century, Grotesque Figures examines nineteenth-century ideological debates over French identity, Rousseau's political and artistic legacy, the aesthetic and political significance of the rococo, and the presence of the grotesque in the modern.

Seller Inventory # 9780801879456

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Grotesque Figures : Baudelaire, Rousseau, and the Aesthetics of Modernity
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press Okt 2004
• Publication Date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801879450
• ISBN 13: 9780801879456
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 236W x 160H x 22D millimeters 236 millimeters width by 160 millimeters height by 22 millimeters depth
• Weight: 522 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Charles Baudelaire is usually read as a paradigmatically modern poet, whose work ushered in a new era of French literature. But the common emphasis on his use of new forms and styles overlooks the complex role of the past in his work. In Grotesque Figures, Virginia E. Swain explores how the specter of the eighteenth century made itself felt in Baudelaire's modern poetry in the pervasive textual and figural presence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Not only do Rousseau's ideas inform Baudelaire's theory of the grotesque, but Rousseau makes numerous appearances in Baudelaire's poetry as a caricature or type representing the hold of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution over Baudelaire and his contemporaries. As a character in "Le Poeme du hashisch" and the Petits Poemes en prose, "Rousseau" gives the grotesque a human form. Swain's literary, cultural, and historical analysis deepens our understanding of Baudelaire and of nineteenth-century aesthetics by relating Baudelaire's poetic theory and practice to Enlightenment debates about allegory and the grotesque in the arts. Offering a novel reading of Baudelaire's ambivalent engagement with the eighteenth-century, Grotesque Figures examines nineteenth-century ideological debates over French identity, Rousseau's political and artistic legacy, the aesthetic and political significance of the rococo, and the presence of the grotesque in the modern.

About the Author

Virginia E. Swain is professor of French at Dartmouth College.