{"product_id":"paris-spleen-paperback","title":"Paris Spleen - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eCharles Baudelaire\u003c\/b\u003e (Author), \u003cb\u003eRainer J. Hanshe\u003c\/b\u003e (Translator)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the 1850s, ancien and Haussmannian Paris clash, giving birth to a violent disjunction. At that moment in time, \u003cem\u003ean other present\u003c\/em\u003e is born, a new history, like Baudelaire's poet freely abandoning his halo on the macadam. The laurel crown has been discarded; the pastoral poet is dead; classical lyric poetry is dead. The steam-driven, gaslit, electrically-charged poet is born. \"Retreat Academic Muse ,\" Baudelaire commands, \"I don't care about that old stutterer.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e With \u003cem\u003eParis Spleen\u003c\/em\u003e, we move toward a new rhythm, a rhythm born of the pace, speed, and reality of a metropolis hitherto never seen or experienced. It is the rhythm of the street, of the swift-moving eye, of overloaded senses and hyper-perception, of newspapers and optical devices. Baudelaire's life spans the essential birth of whole new forms of technology, including steam locomotives, gas light, and electricity, not to speak of the typewriter and the Daguerreotype. The dandy sees and moves with the coming speed of light. His life is one lived in the midst of illumination, mechanics, and simulacra.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Baudelaire's Paris is a place of experience, a metropolis that spawns unique and particular realities, a kaleidoscope of visions and mirror of alternative societies. The grist of his poems is not ancient Greece or the Renaissance. As he stated in the so-called preface to \u003cem\u003eParis Spleen\u003c\/em\u003e, it is especially from frequenting great cities, from the crossroads of their innumerable relations, that the haunting ideal of the prose poem was born. Our fl neur wanders swiftly through crowds, in contact, but anonymous, extracting from the city material to forge his new ars poetica, like a bricolage artist.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e The future is called forth. The street is the new Olympus; the phantasmagoric city is a big harlot whose infernal charm continually rejuvenates the poet. The ironic, infernal beacon is the totem of the new age: the age of dissonance, the age of artificial paradises. \"I love you, O infamous capital \" the poet exults.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Here is \u003cem\u003eParis Spleen\u003c\/em\u003e, an invitation to voyage, to have the entirety of Baudelaire's Paris enter into our flesh and for us to undergo contagion, if our spleens can handle it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 216\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.49 x 8 x 5 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e January 29, 2021\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42708629356607,"sku":"9781940625454","price":23.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0105\/8226\/1823\/files\/e3c8d3c0afbf1b027ecc273a983e2939.webp?v=1765048503","url":"https:\/\/dhlswag.com\/products\/paris-spleen-paperback","provider":"BBB","version":"1.0","type":"link"}