The Arcades Project - Operi

Lamartine's industrial Christ reappears at the eud of the cenmry. Thus Verhaeren,
in ('Le Depart":
And what would evils matter, and demented hours,
And vats of vice in which the city ferments,
If one day, from the depths of fogs and shadows,
A new Christ rises, sculpted in light,
Who lifts humanity toward him
And baptizes it in the fire of newborn stars.m
Baudelaire was not possessed of any such optimism-and that was the great
chance for his presentation of Paris. Cited inJules Destree, "Der Zug nach der
Stadt;' Die neue Zeit, 21, no. 2 (Stuttgart, 1903) . [J76,6]
In the historical action which the proletariat brings against the bourgeois class,
Baudelaire is a witness; but Blanqui is an expert witness. [J76a,1]
If Baudelaire is summoned before the tribunal of history, he will have to put up
with a great many interruptions; an interest that is in many respects foreign to
binl, and in many respects incomprehensible to him, conditions the line of questioning.
Blanqui, on the other hand, has long since made the question on which
he speaks entirely his own; hence, he appears as an expert where this question is
tried. It is therefore not exacdy in the same capacity that Baudelaire and Blanqui
are cited to appear before the tribunal of history. (Compare Nll,3.) [J76a,2]
Abandomnent of the epic moment: a tribunal is no sewing circle. Or better: the
proceedings are instimted, not reported. [J76a,3]
TIle interest which the materialist historian takes in the past is always, in part, a
vital interest in its being past-in its having ceased to exist, its being essentially
dead. To have certified this condition with respect to the whole is the indispensable
prerequisite for any citation (any calling to life) of particular parts of this
phenomenon of what-has-been. In a word: for the specific historical interest
whose legitinmcy it is up to the materialist historian to establish, it must be shown
that one is dealing with an object which in its entirety, acmally and irrevocably,
"belongs to history:' [J76a,4]
The comparison widl Dante can serve both as an example of the perplexity of
the early reception of Baudelaire and as an illustration of Joseph de Maistre's
remark that the earliest judgments concerning an author are bequeathed to the
subsequent criticism. [J76a,5]
In addition to ilie Dante comparison, ilie concept of decadence figures as a keyword
in the reception. It is iliere in Barbey d'Aurevilly, Pontruartin, Bmnetiere,
Bourget. [J76a,6]