The Arcades Project - Operi

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The mental capacities that nlatter in Baudelaire are "souvenirs" of the human
being, somewhat the way medieval allegories are SOUVenITS of the gods. "Baude­
hille;' Claude! once wrote, "takes as his subject the only inner experience left to
people of the nineteenth cenmry-namely, remorse;' Now, this very likely paints
too rosy a picture: remorse was no less past its time than other inner experiences
formerly canonized. Remorse in Baudelaire is merely a souvenir, like repentance,
virme, hope, and even anguish, which was overtaken the moment it relinquished
its place to marne incuriosite book 5, lines 507-569); the desecration of the head of
Pompey (hook 8, lines 663-691); Medusa (book 9, lines 624-653). [JS3,6]
"Le Coucher du solei! romantique"282-landscape as allegory. [JS3,7]
Antiquity and Christianity together determine the historical armature of the
allegorical mode of perception; they provide the lasting mdirnents of the first
allegorical experience-that of the High Middle Ages. "The allegorical outlook
has its origin in the conflict between the guilt-laden physis, held up as an example
by Christianity, and a purer natura deorum [namre of the gods], embodied in tl,e
Pantheon. With the revival of paganism in the Renaissance, and of Christianity
in the Counter-Reformation, allegory, the form of their conflict, also had to be
renewed" «Walter Benjamin" Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels [Berlin, 1928],
p. 226).283 In Baudelaire's case, the matter is clarified if we reverse the formula.
The allegorical experience was primary for him; one can say that he appropri-