The Cambridge Companion to Baudelaire (review)

This volume's stated goal is to illuminate, for both lay readers and specialists, the great variety of Baudelaire's work, and in her preface Rosemary Lloyd highlights the poet's importance beyond Les Fleurs du Mal, as a translator and critic whose intellectual engagement with major figures such as Poe, Wagner and Delacroix has, over the last twenty years, occupied scholars as much as his literary output. Refreshingly, several of the fifteen chapters deal with these broader perspectives across Baudelaire's complete œuvre, such as E.S. Burt's study of Les Paradis artificiels, J.A. Hiddleston's chapter on Baudelaire's Salons and art criticism, and Beryl Schlossman's reflections on his place in literary and cultural history. It is a mark of the volume's coherence that these questions are always related back to Baudelaire's poetics; Margaret Miner's chapter on "Music and theatre," taking in Tannhaüser alongside Baudelaire's aborted sketches for the stage, concludes with remarks on the musicality and theatricality of the poetry, while Lloyd's chapter on "Baudelaire's literary criticism" explores the poet's thoughts on the relationship between truth and beauty in art. The volume's target reader seems to be the undergraduate studying Les Fleurs du Mal for the first time, and as such it provides many clear explanations of complex questions, inspiring the student to read thoughtfully, creatively, imaginatively and confidently. There are concise, but stimulating, overviews such as John E. Jackson's biography, which examines the poet's financial woes, his 1857 prosecution and the various poses of dandyism, Satanism and sadism. Barbara Wright's chapter takes the theme of the journey as a fil conducteur linking diverse aspects of the poetry, from urban flânerie, artistic and amorous impulses to death, "the last journey," while Sonya Stephens places the problem of irresolvable questions, not least that of generic labels, at the heart of her reading of the prose poems. Edward K. Kaplan's chapter on "Baudelaire's ethics" examines the themes of evil, sin, self-awareness, compassion, irony and injustice as an impenetrable mystery, an endless search. Similarly, Rachel Killick provides a useful introduction to the technical aspects of Baudelaire's verse, with all its tensions, concluding that his triumph was "to have made the challenges and vicissitudes of versification an integral and organic part of his reflection on the human condition" (66). Two chapters prove especially engaging for readers already familiar with Baudelaire: Dolf Oehler's discussion of the poet's politics, which argues that the historical fractures of four different governmental regimes were as important in shaping his poetics as were the personal crises he suffered, and Ross Chambers' chapter on "Baudelaire's Paris," which reads his poetry in the light of the exponential growth of the modern metropolis and its effects on the consciousness of its inhabitants. While no one is better qualified to talk of the challenges of "Translating Baudelaire" than Clive Scott, it is a shame, given the volume's admirable breadth, that there is no study of Baudelaire's own translations, of De Quincey and, more importantly, of Poe. Despite the impressionistic nature of closing chapters on "A woman reading Baudelaire" and "The stroll and preparation for departure," which perhaps have the virtue of providing students with more personal insights into the pleasures and problems of reading Baudelaire, this volume provides a vibrant, up-to-date and excitingly broad-ranging introduction to Baudelaire, written by some of the most authoritative scholars in the field.