Thanks again for your kind attention to my text. I am not terribly concerned about falling in lockstep with other authors, be they younger or older. On the other hand, I am always happy to attend to good counsel. First off, I should qualify any attribution of -isms. Paul Valéry put it best:
Il est impossible de penser ― sérieusement ― avec des mots comme Classicisme, Romantisme, Humanisme, Réalisme… On ne s’enivre ni se désaltère avec des étiquettes de bouteilles.
I think the same goes for attributions of decadence. As for Baudelaire in his relations with nature, he follows Delacroix in regarding her as only a dictionary, but by the same token, no less than a dictionary. Thus also Pascal: there are perfections in nature to show that she is the image of God, and imperfections to show that she is no more than his image (Pensées §934/580 Lafuma/Brunschvicg). Further, Romantic poetry has been infected with the desire to represent itself as philosophy at least since Shelley and Lamartine translated and versified Socratic dialogues. Nevertheless, it failed to embody philosophical concepts and arguments until Coleridge and Vigny made short work of Kantian aesthetics and Stoic ethics. Baudelaire inherited these concerns from his elders, through direct and personal connections with Vigny and access to Cambridge neo-Platonists by way of Poe. His concern with Pascal’s Wager and his practice of its prescriptions is witnessed in the journals, under the heading of Hygiène. Needless to say, this game-theoretic argument is practically the sole vestige of Cartesianism in Pascal’s body of writings. As answered by Baudelaire in ¶16 of Le mauvais vitrier, it is a matter of fighting fire with fire. Because the availability of memory is a prerequisite for the experience of punishment, the unrepentant transgressor needs must have recourse to moral satisfaction in reflection on whatever solace he ever took in his crimes. In addition to the aforementioned palimpsest, the key text here is the journal note on Satan, in the manner of Milton, as the most perfect type of virile Beauty. I have discussed some of these issues elsewhere.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-05-15 08:10 am (UTC)First off, I should qualify any attribution of -isms. Paul Valéry put it best:I think the same goes for attributions of decadence. As for Baudelaire in his relations with nature, he follows Delacroix in regarding her as only a dictionary, but by the same token, no less than a dictionary. Thus also Pascal: there are perfections in nature to show that she is the image of God, and imperfections to show that she is no more than his image (Pensées §934/580 Lafuma/Brunschvicg). Further, Romantic poetry has been infected with the desire to represent itself as philosophy at least since Shelley and Lamartine translated and versified Socratic dialogues. Nevertheless, it failed to embody philosophical concepts and arguments until Coleridge and Vigny made short work of Kantian aesthetics and Stoic ethics. Baudelaire inherited these concerns from his elders, through direct and personal connections with Vigny and access to Cambridge neo-Platonists by way of Poe. His concern with Pascal’s Wager and his practice of its prescriptions is witnessed in the journals, under the heading of Hygiène. Needless to say, this game-theoretic argument is practically the sole vestige of Cartesianism in Pascal’s body of writings. As answered by Baudelaire in ¶16 of Le mauvais vitrier, it is a matter of fighting fire with fire. Because the availability of memory is a prerequisite for the experience of punishment, the unrepentant transgressor needs must have recourse to moral satisfaction in reflection on whatever solace he ever took in his crimes. In addition to the aforementioned palimpsest, the key text here is the journal note on Satan, in the manner of Milton, as the most perfect type of virile Beauty. I have discussed some of these issues elsewhere.