Book Description

Baudelaire's Media Aesthetics situates Charles Baudelaire in the midst of 19th-century media culture. It offers a thorough study of the role of newspapers, photography, and pre-cinematic devices in Baudelaire's writings, while also discussing the cultural history of these media generally. Whereas Baudelaire is often seen as an advocate of “art for art's sake” and an enemy of the mechanical arts, this book reveals that Baudelaire's aesthetics was inspired by 19th-century media technology. It argues that Baudelaire played with the new forms of perception emerging in the media age, using them as frames of perception and ways of experiencing the world. Highlighting Baudelaire's interaction with the media in his age, this study also addresses the ways in which we respond to new media technology, drawing on perspectives from Walter Benjamin and Giorgio Agamben. Baudelaire's Media Aesthetics bridges the gap between literary and visual studies by introducing perspectives from media, visual and cinema studies in the reading of Baudelaire. Combining detailed research with contemporary theory, it opens up new perspectives on Baudelaire's writings, the figure of the flâneur, and modernist aesthetics.