Seeing Double

Baudelaire's Modernity

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, French, European
Cover of the book Seeing Double by Françoise Meltzer, University of Chicago Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Françoise Meltzer ISBN: 9780226519876
Publisher: University of Chicago Press Publication: May 1, 2011
Imprint: University of Chicago Press Language: English
Author: Françoise Meltzer
ISBN: 9780226519876
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication: May 1, 2011
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Language: English

The poet Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) has been labeled the very icon of modernity, the scribe of the modern city, and an observer of an emerging capitalist culture. Seeing Double reconsiders this iconic literary figure and his fraught relationship with the nineteenth-century world by examining the way in which he viewed the increasing dominance of modern life. In doing so, it revises some of our most common assumptions about the unresolved tensions that emerged in Baudelaire’s writing during a time of political and social upheaval.

Françoise Meltzer argues that Baudelaire did not simply describe the contradictions of modernity; instead, his work embodied and recorded them, leaving them unresolved and often less than comprehensible. Baudelaire’s penchant for looking simultaneously backward to an idealized past and forward to an anxious future, while suspending the tension between them, is part of what Meltzer calls his “double vision”—a way of seeing that produces encounters that are doomed to fail, poems that can’t advance, and communications that always seem to falter. In looking again at the poet and his work, Seeing Double helps to us to understand the prodigious transformations at stake in the writing of modern life.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

The poet Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) has been labeled the very icon of modernity, the scribe of the modern city, and an observer of an emerging capitalist culture. Seeing Double reconsiders this iconic literary figure and his fraught relationship with the nineteenth-century world by examining the way in which he viewed the increasing dominance of modern life. In doing so, it revises some of our most common assumptions about the unresolved tensions that emerged in Baudelaire’s writing during a time of political and social upheaval.

Françoise Meltzer argues that Baudelaire did not simply describe the contradictions of modernity; instead, his work embodied and recorded them, leaving them unresolved and often less than comprehensible. Baudelaire’s penchant for looking simultaneously backward to an idealized past and forward to an anxious future, while suspending the tension between them, is part of what Meltzer calls his “double vision”—a way of seeing that produces encounters that are doomed to fail, poems that can’t advance, and communications that always seem to falter. In looking again at the poet and his work, Seeing Double helps to us to understand the prodigious transformations at stake in the writing of modern life.

More books from University of Chicago Press

Cover of the book Dreamscapes of Modernity by Françoise Meltzer
Cover of the book Telling About Society by Françoise Meltzer
Cover of the book AIDS Doesn't Show Its Face by Françoise Meltzer
Cover of the book Rembrandt's Jews by Françoise Meltzer
Cover of the book Mapping the Nation by Françoise Meltzer
Cover of the book "Discourse and Truth" and "Parresia" by Françoise Meltzer
Cover of the book Currency Statecraft by Françoise Meltzer
Cover of the book The Invention of Heterosexuality by Françoise Meltzer
Cover of the book The Appian Way by Françoise Meltzer
Cover of the book Wattana by Françoise Meltzer
Cover of the book Capital and Interest by Françoise Meltzer
Cover of the book The Crescent Obscured by Françoise Meltzer
Cover of the book Fermi Remembered by Françoise Meltzer
Cover of the book The People's Peking Man by Françoise Meltzer
Cover of the book Erring by Françoise Meltzer
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy