Roberto Calasso is one of the most original and
acclaimed of writers on literature, art, culture and
mythology. In Baudelaire's Folly, Calasso turns
his attention to the poets and writers of Paris in the
nineteenth century who created what was later called
'the Modern.' His protagonist is Charles Baudelaire:
poet of nerves, art lover, pioneering critic, man about
Paris, whose groundbreaking works on modern culture
described the ephemeral, fleeting nature of life in the
metropolis - and the artist's role in capturing this -
as no other writer had done. With Baudelaire's
critical intelligence as his inspiration, Calasso ranges
through his life and work, focusing on two painters -
Ingres and Delacroix - about whom Baudelaire wrote
acutely, and then turns to Degas and Manet, who followed
in the tracks Baudelaire laid down in his great essay
The Painter of Modern Life. In a mosaic of
stories, insights, dreams, close readings of poems and
commentaries on paintings, Paris in Baudelaire's years
comes to life. In the eighteenth century, a 'folie' was
a garden pavilion set aside for people of leisure, a
place of delight and fantasy. Here Calasso has created a
brilliant and dramatic 'Folie Baudelaire': a place where
the reader can encounter Baudelaire, his peers, his
city, his extraordinary likes and dislikes, and his
world, finally discovering that it is nothing less than
the land of 'absolute literature'.
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