French Literature Reviews - 2026
A. Compagnon, Baudelaire. L’irréductible (reprint)
Novel and Narrative Prose
Baudelaire. L’irréductible
Antoine COMPAGNON
Flammarion, "Champs Essais", 2021
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11 EUR
336 pages
EAN : 9782080205483
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Contrary to the common misconception that casts him as the figurehead of 20th-century avant-gardes, Baudelaire was both modern and antimodern.
This is demonstrated by his obsession with certain novelties of his time: the press, photography, the city, and new ways of making art—all facets of the same elusive and contradictory "modern thing" to which he gave the name of modernity. Faced with these upheavals, the poet is torn between horror and ecstasy: mass-circulation newspapers disgust him, yet he hounds these "scoundrel" editors to get published; he attacks photography, yet poses for legendary portraits...
This ambivalence forms the backdrop of Paris Spleen, the culmination of the late Baudelaire's contradictions and a true dissident of modern consciousness. With brilliance, Antoine Compagnon paints the portrait of a poet as unexpected as he is irreducible.
Contents:
THE LATE BAUDELAIRE
A JOURNALIST POET
DOWN WITH PHOTOGRAPHY
BEFORE THE CAMERA OBSCURA
THE HORRIBLE CITY
BATHING IN THE CROWD
SERIOUS CARICATURES
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Antoine Compagnon examines how the author of Les Fleurs du mal navigated the rapid transformations of nineteenth-century urban life. Rather than simply serving as a precursor to twentieth-century avant-gardes, the poet occupies a complex position defined by profound ambivalence toward industrialization and mass culture. The study illuminates how this tension manifested in his complicated relationship with the emerging press, photography, and the bustling crowds of the capital, presenting a figure caught perpetually between attraction and repulsion.
This accessible paperback edition serves students, scholars, and general readers interested in nineteenth-century French literature and cultural history. By focusing on the late works, particularly Paris Spleen, the book helps readers grapple with the origins of modern artistic consciousness and the paradoxes of the creative mind under capitalism. It provides a nuanced intellectual framework for understanding one of poetry's most elusive figures, moving beyond familiar literary clichés to reveal a genuinely dissident intellect.