Charles Baudelaire: A Study

Charles Baudelaire: A Study

When Baudelaire is great, when his genius is at its highest point of imaginative creation, of imaginative criticism, it is never when he works by implicationas the great men who are pure artists (for instance, Shakespeare) work by implication onlybut always from his personal point of view being simply infallible and impeccable. The pure artist, it has been said, never asserts: and the instances are far from being numerous; Balzac asserts, and Balzac is always absolutely just in all his assertions: he whose analysis of modern SocietyLa Comdie Humaineverges almost always on creation; and despite certain deficiencies in technique and in style, he remains the greatest of all novelists. As for Baudelaire, he rarely asserts; he more often suggests or divineswith that exquisite desire of perfect and just work that is always in him. With his keen vision he rarely misses the essential; with his subtle and sifted prose he rarely fails in characterizing the right man in the right way and the wrong manthe man who is not an artistin forms of ironical condemnation. Shelley in his time and Blake in his time gave grave enough offence and perplexity; so did Baudelaire, so did Poe, so did Swinburne, so did Rossetti, so did Beardsley. All had their intervals of revoltspiritual or unspiritual, according to the particular trend of their genius; some destroy mendacious idols, some change images into symbols; some are supposed to be obscurely original. All had to apprehend, as Browning declared in regard to his readers and critics in one of his Prefaces, "charges of being wilfully obscure, unconscientiously careless, or perversely harsh." And all these might have said as he said: "I blame nobody, least of all myself, who did my best then and since." ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 50488
Author: Symons, Arthur
Release Date: Nov 19, 2015
Format: eBook
Language: English