Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Baudelaire's Aesthetic Architecture of Revolt

An Axial Analysis

Sonya Isaak

• Publisher: Universitätsverlag Winter
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9783825372811
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This study is essential reading for those interested in cross-cultural nineteenth century literary developments. It introduces a novel axial methodology used to perform a comparative analysis of seminal works by Edgar Allan Poe and Charles Baudelaire. Laying bare uncanny affinities of these writers, this book traces their strikingly similar generic innovations, exploring how they revised antiquated notions of Romanticism, anticipating Modernism. Baudelaire casts the American author as a Byronic dandy, assuring Poe's lasting reputation. But does Baudelaire owe more to Poe than previously assumed? Was Baudelaire's Poe a convenient palimpsest for the French writer's own self-invention, or did Poe cast a shadow on his disciple, fostering an anxiety of influence? The study examines when Baudelaire emulated his mentor and when he subverted Poe's influence. The axial methodology proposed should prove useful for professors and students who want to compare other aesthetic works.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Titel
• Imprint
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part One: Exploring the Context
• I Edgar Allan Poe’s American Identity in Question
• II Baudelaire’s Polyglot Identity
• III Baudelaire’s Fascination with Poe
• Part Two: Exploring the Aesthetic Affinities of Poe and Baudelaire
• I The Anti-Mimetic Art of Imaginative Recollection (Inventatio over Imitatio)
• II “L’Art pour l’Art” and Poetry for Poetry
• III The Aesthetics of Self-Invention
• IV Constructing an Aesthetic Ideal
• V An Architecture of Aesthetic Spaces
• VI Existential Conflict in the Quest for the Ideal
• VII Poe and the Quest for the Ideal: Eldorado as an Aesthetic Odyssey
• Part Three: Exploring Artistic Craftsmanship: Poe and Baudelaire’s Innovative ‘Architecture’ as a Revolt Against Established Generic Norms
• I The Vade Mecums
• II Brevities as Genre Expansion: Poe’s ‚Marginalia‘ and Baudelaire’s ‚Mon coeur mis à nu and Fusées‘
• III Prose versus Poetry
• IV Baudelaire’s Appropriation and Expansion of Poe’s Genre Innovations
• Conclusion
• Table of Figures [All illustrations by the author]
• Works Cited
• Appendix 1 Interview with Curators of “L’OEil de Baudelaire” [English Translation], September 19, 2016
• Appendix 2 Interview with Curators of «L’OEil de Baudelaire» [French Original], le 19 Septembre, 2016
• Index
• Backcover