The Realist Author and Sympathetic Imagination by Paraschas Sotirios;

Author:Paraschas, Sotirios;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

From the Poet to the Flâneur: 'Perte d'auréole'

The concluding scene of the poet’s drama is enacted in ‘Perte d’auréole’; the poet finds himself in the midst of the modern city and is transformed into the flâneur:47 the final coup is a mutilation, the loss of his halo. The halo is a transparent symbol of the poet as vates, as inspired creator: Baudelaire had evoked it in its traditional sense in ‘Bénédiction’,48 where the poet’s portrayal as a martyr, who is tortured by his fellow-beings, is counterbalanced by his divine credentials. The halo is still discernible on Fancioulle’s head: ‘une indestructible auréole autour de la tête, auréole invisible pour tous, mais visible pour moi, et où se mêlaient dans un étrange amalgame, les rayons de l’Art et la gloire du Martyre’ (SP, 321) [an indestructible halo around his head, invisible for all but visible to me, which combined, in a strange amalgam, the beams of Art and the glory of Martyrdom]. In ‘Perte d’auréole’, the poet drops his halo when crossing a congested boulevard and exhibits a most un-martyr-like attitude: ‘J’ai jugé moins désagréable de perdre mes insignes que de me faire rompre les os’ (SP, 352) [I decided it is less unpleasant to lose my insignia than to have my bones smashed] — he is evidently not ready to suffer any tortures for his faith.

The poet seems to greet this transformation with glee: ‘Et puis, me suis-je dit, à quelque chose malheur est bon’ (SP, 352) [And then, I said to myself, every misfortune is for the best]. He savours the permission to wander unrecognized ‘comme les simples mortels’ (SP, 352), like the author of the dedication who welcomes the mutilations inflicted on his work by the publisher and the readers. Unsurprisingly, the place where one finds him after that is a ‘mauvais lieu’ (SP, 352), a brothel. However, like the author of the dedication, who is confident that his work will generate a unity of its own, the narrator’s joy erupts precisely at the moment he is recognized by the anonymous interlocutor; even if he seems to be happily relinquishing his renown, he still believes in a superiority which, while allowing him to mingle with the urban crowd, will also enable him to stand out from it. This feature, which guarantees his superiority and makes him, like Constantin Guys, resemble ‘un prince qui jouit partout de son incognito’ [a prince enjoying his incognito wherever he goes],49 is the sympathetic imagination. In what follows, I shall explore the way that Baudelaire treats the second authorial persona of Le Spleen de Paris, the flâneur.50

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