Baudelaire, Emerson, and the French-American Connection: Contrary Affinities

154 Pages·2011·4.32 MB·English

by  Baudelaire

B
,
AUDELAIRE
E ,
MERSON AND THE
F -A
RENCH MERICAN
C
ONNECTION
Currents in Comparative Romance
Languages and Literatures

Tamara Alvarez-Detrell and Michael G. Paulson
General Editors

Vol. 195

PETER LANG
New York (cid:121) Washington, D.C./Baltimore (cid:121) Bern
Frankfurt (cid:121) Berlin (cid:121) Brussels (cid:121) Vienna (cid:121) Oxford
Dudley M. Marchi

B
,
AUDELAIRE
E ,
MERSON AND THE
F -A
RENCH MERICAN
C
ONNECTION

Contrary Affinities

PETER LANG
New York (cid:121) Washington, D.C./Baltimore (cid:121) Bern
Frankfurt (cid:121) Berlin (cid:121) Brussels (cid:121) Vienna (cid:121) Oxford
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Marchi, Dudley M.
Baudelaire, Emerson, and the French-American connection:
contrary affinities / Dudley M. Marchi.
p. cm. — (Currents in comparative romance languages and literatures; vol. 195)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Baudelaire, Charles, 1821–1867—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Baudelaire, Charles,
1821–1867—Influence. 3. Comparative literature—French and American. 4. Comparative
literature—American and French. I. Title.
PQ2191.Z5M226 841’.8—dc22 2011011080
ISBN 978-1-4331-1442-7
ISSN 0893-5963

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Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm,
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Printed in Germany
Marchi fm_T3.qxd 6/6/2011 4:13 PM Page v
CONTENTS
Prologue vii
Introduction xiii
chapter 1. Baudelaire and Poe: The Idealist Earns a Living 1
chapter 2. Baudelaire and Longfellow: Music, Money, and Indians 7
chapter 3. Baudelaire and Emerson: Contrary Affinities 12
chapter 4. Baudelaire’s America 32
chapter 5. When Jeanne Meets Sally 52
chapter 6. The Infinite Essaying of Affinity 60
chapter 7. Yesterday and Today 67
Epilogue: Localized Perspectives 95
Bibliography 123
Index 129
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Marchi fm_T3.qxd 6/6/2011 4:13 PM Page vii
PROLOGUE
THE RECIPROCAL, TRANSATLANTIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FRANCE AND THE
United States has been significant, yet too often misunderstood: sometimes out
of national chauvinism, or the inability of scholars to adequately evaluate the
complex debt these countries owe to each other, or simply out of the difficul-
ty of piecing together into a cohesive perspective all of the ambivalent attitudes
each country has held toward the other for over two hundred years. This work
looks to enhance our understanding of the vital interconnectedness of France
and the United States by focusing on the political and cultural relations
between them, and by examining a recurring motif that is at the very heart of
the problem of modern democratic society: how to reconcile the collective
experience and the role of the individual within it.
Many of the aspirations of the French and American revolutions have been
fulfilled, and many have not. The purpose of this study is thus to examine the
problems faced by contemporary Western culture as exemplified by “old-
world” France and “new-world” America in order to come to terms with our
increasingly complex and fragmented collective experience of diversity in dis-
unity. The writers to be discussed have at the core of their thinking the very
notion of how to reconcile individual and collective experience in their
respective writing projects and social agendas. An historical perspective to con-
temporary issues may help us come to terms with some of the pressing prob-
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viii prologue
lems currently facing France and the United States, and to better understand
some key literary texts from a new perspective.
The title of this work, Contrary Affinities,indicates my purpose in analyz-
ing the sometimes oppositional, and sometimes cooperative, relationship
between the two countries. As a comparatist, I attempt to make connections
that may not be evident or pertinent to the French- or American-studies spe-
cialist. The comparative perspective, moving back and forth between cultures,
writers, and texts, provides a unique perspective on the special relationship
between these two idiosyncratic countries. The transatlantic perspective also
lends itself very well to my topic because “the transatlantic dynamic is an irre-
sistible force of attraction and repulsion, absorption and distinction” (Kaufman
& Slettedahl, xix), a recurring theme of this study. Such an inquiry into blur-
ry areas of influence and affinities will hopefully yield a better understanding
of French-American intercultural relations.
The title, Contrary Affinities,also has personal and professional dimensions.
I was raised in the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts, in a typical American mid-
dle-class environment, attended public schools, and knew nothing about
France until I was thirteen years old. I have no French heritage in my family
lineage and was first exposed to France and the French language in seventh
grade. I immediately became enamored with learning French, and for no
explicable reason, was naturally adept at it. My first contacts with people from
other countries were my secondary-school French teachers: Monsieur Lemaire
from Montreal, Canada, and Madame Meyer, an expatriate French woman from
Lyon. Monsieur Lemaire was a young and enthusiastic teacher, who inspired his
students to love the language as much as he did. He had an easy elegance, was
witty, intelligent, and captivated his students’ attention. Madame Meyer was
old world and old school in her demeanor, dress, manners, and pedagogy, but
she always had her students’ respect and taught them all she knew about the
language, history, and culture of France. Monsieur Lemaire and Madame Meyer
were unlike anyone I had ever met before; they left an indelible impression on
me and thus began this American’s interest in France.
For some reason, I thrived in this new linguistic and cultural environment;
my French language studies progressed through high school to the point that,
during our senior trip to Paris, I got along quite well in speaking French. I quick-
ly became a left-bank devotee and frequented its cafés, theaters, and especial-
ly its bookstores. I developed into an avid reader of French literature. My first
affinity for France, in contrast to my previous reading of mostly English and
American canonical literature, began to blossom. Through my reading of
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prologue ix
French literature, as an undergraduate and graduate student, especially the
works of Montaigne and Baudelaire, I found a counterbalance to my American
literary self. I grew up twelve miles from Concord, had visited Emerson’s home,
Thoreau’s hut on Walden Pond, and read their work. I had studied and visit-
ed sites relevant to the American Revolution in Boston, and had read Franklin
and Jefferson under the guidance of my outstanding American history teacher
at Newton North High School, Mr. Ned Rossiter. I was thus imbued with a
strong American slant in my early cultural development.
This Americanist interest continued while I pursued my undergraduate
degree at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. I lived in Robert Frost’s
old apartment, which was a stone’s throw from the Emily Dickinson homestead,
became involved in the local poetry scene, read the work of Whitman and Poe,
and pursued my interest in the American Renaissance. I was majoring in
American and English literature and enjoying my studies, but still reading
French writers in my leisure time, thanks to Madame Meyer. The faculty in the
English Department seemed to hold French literature in some disdain and
wondered why I was wasting valuable time reading those “frivolous authors,”
as one of my English professors proclaimed. I therefore conducted my French
reading quietly and independently of my formal studies. I had also visited
Monticello on a spring break trip. Learning of Jefferson’s passion for France kin-
dled my interest in the French-American connection.
Then, by a fortuitous occurrence (I needed an elective course and registered
for one that suited my schedule), I enrolled in a comparative literature semi-
nar entitled “Modern Literature.” Dr. David Lenson opened a whole new world
for me as he moved seamlessly between such authors as Baudelaire and Blake,
Whitman and Rimbaud, Proust and Joyce, Woolf and de Beauvoir. I became a
comparative literature major when I realized I could better understand the writ-
ers of one national tradition when considering them in relation to others.
During my graduate studies, as I grappled with the complete works of
Montaigne, Baudelaire, and Emerson, it became obvious that one could come
to a full appreciation of these writers’ works only from a comparative perspec-
tive. These writers developed their literary programs based on a wide range of
reading of authors and histories of other countries and, in this, another con-
trary affinity becomes apparent. Only by virtue of difference and otherness do
we establish and develop an understanding of ourselves and of the world. This
view has been a guiding principle in my academic career and in this study. I
have always been situated, personally and professionally, between France and
the United States and their cultural dissimilarities. This location has given me