The Arcades Project - Operi

The elaborate theorems with which the principle of "art for art's sake" was
enunciated by its original proponents, as by subsequent literary history, ulti­
mately come down to a specific thesis: that sensibility is the true subject of poetry.
Sensibility is, by its nature, involved in suffering. If it experiences its highest
concretization, its richest determination, in the sphere of the erotic, then it must
find its absolute consummation, which coincides with its transfiguration, in the
Passion. It will define the idea of an "aesthetic Passion!' The concept of the
aesthetic appears here with precisely the signification that Kierkegaard gives it in
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The poetics of I 'art pour l'art blends seamlessly into the aesthetic Passion of Les
Fleun du mal. [J59,6]
The "loss of a halo"323 conCerns the poet first of all. He is obliged to exhibit
himself in his own person on the market. Baudelaire played this role to the hilt. His
famous mythomania was a publicity stunt. [J59,7]
The new dreariness and desolation of Paris, as it is described by Veuillot, comes
on the scene, together with the dreariness of men's attire, as an essential moment
in the image of modernity. [J59,8]
Mystification, with Baudelaire, is an apotropaic magic, similar to the lie among
prostitutes. [J59,9]
The commodity form emerges in Baudelaire as the social content of the allegori­
cal form of perception. Form and content are united in the prostitute, as in their
synthesis. [J59,lO]
Baudelaire perceived the significance of the mass-produced article as clearly as
did Balzac. In this, his "Americanism;' of which Laforgue speaks, has its finnest
foundation. He wanted to create a ponci/, a cliche. Lemaitre assures him that he
succeeded. [J59a,1]
Apropos of Va lery's reflections on the situation of Baudelaire. It is important that
Baudelaire met with competitive relations in the production of poetry. Of course,
rivalry between poets is as old as the hills. But in the period around 1830, these
rivalries began to be decided on the open market. It was victory in that fie!d-,md
not the patronage of the gentry, princes, or the clergy-that was to be won. This
condition weighed more heavily on the lyric than on other fonns of poetry. The
disorganization of styles and of poetic schools is the complement of that market,
which reveals itself to the poet as the "public." Baudelaire was not based in any
style, and he had no school. It was a real discovery for him that he was competing
against individuals. [J59a,2]