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13 - A woman reading Baudelaire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2006

Rosemary Lloyd
Affiliation:
Indiana University
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Summary

Mind the gap

(Announcement on the London Underground)

Making a binary move: all too easy with Baudelaire. On every level, in every genre. Political and social and moral: men against women; or perhaps the dark muse Jeanne Duval, available, and the white marble Madonna Mme Sabatier, available or not. These two women are both grandly illustrated in the poems in prose and verse, too clear to bear pointing out, especially, for Jeanne, the prose poems of sadistic clarity, and, for Mme Sabatier, the highly visual details in 'A une madone', as opposed to the woman in the prose poem 'La Belle Dorothée', in which the blazing sun and the complexion work in opposition against and for each other: 'Her red sunshade, filtering the light, projects on to her dark face the blood-red rouge of its reflections' (PP 66) ['Son ombrelle rouge, tamisant la lumière, projette sur son visage sombre le fard sanglant de ses reflets' (OC I 316)]. (See the specific details in 'A une madone', 'Les Bijoux', 'Le Serpent qui danse', and the concrete visuality of the 'sea of ebony' ['mer d'ébène'], 'blue head of hair' ['cheveux bleus'], 'your heavy mane' ['ta crinière lourde'], 'mingled scents / Essence of cooa-oil, pitch and musk' ['des senteurs confondues / De l'huile de coco, du musc, et du goudron'], in 'La Chevelure', as opposed to the unspecific canals, cities, vessels ['canaux', 'villes', 'vaisseaux'] of 'L'Invitation au voyage'). You think: there is a split everywhere: between rich child and poor ('Le Joujou du pauvre') or then between the noble impoverished lady in black walking outside the amusement park, holding her child by the hand - the price of the entrance would of course mean one less comfort or pleasure for the child - as opposed to the gaiety and bright dresses within ('Les Veuves').

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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