Abdur Rehman Khan
When and how does the Flaneur speak?
It was Walter Benjamin who most persuasively argued that Baudelaire was the first ‘writer of
modern life1’, adapting the title of Baudelaire’s encomium on the artist Constantin Guys, ‘The
Painter of Modern Life2’. Baudelaire starts this essay by saying "the world- and even the world
of artists- is full of people who can go to the Louvre, walk rapidly, without so much as a glance,
past rows of very interesting , though secondary, pictures, to come to a rapturous halt in front of
a Titian or a Raphael- then they will go home happy, not a few saying to themselves, ‘I know my
museum” (p 1). Here Baudelaire pokes fun of people and artists alike, his complaint is a simple
one of not observing enough the given surroundings. The Flaneur does the very opposite and
speaks by capturing “the ephemeral, the fugitive and the contingent.” In his poem “Un Cabaret
folâtre” translated as Gay Chophouse by David Paul3 the manner of a Flaneur can be observed as
Baudlaire captures the said minute and odd particulars in a magnificent way:
Gay Chophouse
(On the road from Brussels to Uccle)
You who adore the skeleton
And all such horrible devices
As so many relishes and spices
To tickle the delicate palate on (line 1-4)
Notice the line in brackets, the poem is obviously a product of Baudelaire's treading on that road,
and even in the state of movement he manages to capture particulars like ‘horrible devices’
1
Benjamin, Walter, and Michael William. Jennings. The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles
Baudelaire. Harvard University Press, 2006.
2
Baudelaire, Charles, and Jonathan Mayne. The Painter of Modern Life: And Other Essays. London:
Phaidon, 1964
3
David Paul, Flowers of Evil, New Directions, New York, 1955
which could be the meat cutting choppers, scimitars; skeletons of animals. Baudelaire writes,“We
might liken the spectator to the mirror as vast as the crowd itself; or to a kaleidoscope gifted with
consciousness, responding to each of its movements and reproducing the multiplicity of life and
flickering grace of all elements of life” (p 9). What Baudlaire has written for an ideal spectator
stands true in many of his own poems just as seen in “Un Cabaret”.
One of the key ways in which a Flaneur speaks is capturing the ‘fugitive’ which is deeply tied to
the crowd, as the crowd is in the constant state of fleeting. Baudelaire writes for the modern
artist, “The crowd is his element, as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and
his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate
spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of multitude, amid the ebb and flow of
movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite (p 9)" .This setting up of a house amidst
the crowd can be seen in the following poem titled A une passante (To a Passerby) :
The street about me roared with a deafening sound.
Tall, slender, in heavy mourning, majestic grief,
A woman passed, with a glittering hand
Raising, swinging the hem and flounces of her skirt (line 1-4) 4
The enjambment between line two and three makes the poem sound as if it is not just the passing
woman who is in majestic grief but the very street of Paris as well. The reason for this grief due
to which “the street roared with a deafening sound” could be none other than the loss of old
Paris, which is a main theme in many of Baudelaire’s poems, especially La Cygne (The Swan).
Such are the key situations when a Flaneur finds that it is absolutely necessary to speak. And the
how is elaborated even more ornately in the next stanza:
4
Translated by William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil, Academy Library Guild, Fresno, 1954
A lightning flash... then night! Fleeting beauty
By whose glance I was suddenly reborn,
Will I see you no more before eternity?
Elsewhere, far, far from here! too late! never perhaps!
For I know not where you fled, you know not where I go,
O you whom I would have loved, O you who knew it!
Baudelaire does not shy from using a direct word such as Fleeting, phrases like “will I see you
no more before eternity” , “far, far from here” “too late!” depicts “the ebb and flow of
movement” and the “infinite”.
Bibliography:
Baudelaire, Charles, Flowers of Evil, New Directions, New York, 1955
Baudelaire, Charles, and Jonathan Mayne. The Painter of Modern Life: And Other Essays.
London: Phaidon, 1964
Benjamin, Walter, and Michael William. Jennings. The Writer of Modern Life: Essays on Charles
Baudelaire. Harvard University Press, 2006.
Scott,Cyril, Baudelaire: The Flowers of Evil, London 1909
Aggeler, William, The Flowers of Evil, Academy Library Guild, Fresno, 1954
