Le spleen de Paris, un Paris pour collectionneur?

In Le Spleen de Paris (1855-1865), Baudelaire not only paints the capital of France from a scenic point of view, referring to well-known places and typical characters, but also by echoing the voices of many Parisian people. He does so without expressing any judgment about the ideology their discourses convey. In this way, the imaginary Paris of Baudelaire seems to be incoherent and cacophonous, just like the modern capitalist world in which the poet is condemned to live, looking at it like a spectator or a witness, without understanding it. It is this detached attitude that defines Baudelaire’s modernity.