Baudelaire's Responses to Death: (In)articulation - DukeSpace

186 Pages·2012·1.74 MB·English

Baudelaire’s Responses to Death: (In)articulation, Mourning and Suicide
By
Joyce Cheuk Ting Wu
Department of Romance Studies
Duke University

Date:_______________________
Approved:

___________________________
Deborah Jenson, Supervisor

___________________________
David Bell

___________________________
Roberto Dainotto

___________________________
Paol Keineg

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of
Romance Studies in the Graduate School
of Duke University

2012
ABSTRACT
Baudelaire’s Responses to Death: (In)articulation, Mourning and Suicide
by
Joyce Cheuk Ting Wu
Department of Romance Studies
Duke University

Date:_______________________
Approved:

___________________________
Deborah Jenson, Supervisor

___________________________
David Bell

___________________________
Roberto Dainotto

___________________________
Paol Keineg

An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree
of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of
Romance Studies in the Graduate School
of Duke University

2012
Copyright by
Joyce Cheuk Ting Wu
2012
Abstract
Although Charles Baudelaire’s poetry was censored in part for his graphic
representations of death, for Baudelaire himself, death was the ultimate censorship. He
grappled with its limitations of the possibility of articulation in Les Fleurs du mal, Le
Spleen de Paris, “Le Poème du hachisch,” and other works. The first chapter of this
dissertation, “Dead Silent,” explores Baudelaire’s use of apophasis as a rhetorical tactic
to thwart the censoring force of death as what prevents the speaking subject from
responding. Chapter two, “Voices Beyond the Grave,” then investigates the opposite
poetics of articulation and inarticulation, in the form of post-mortem voice from within
the cemetery, and particularly as didactic speech that contradicts the living.
“Baudelaire’s Widows” argues that the widow is for Baudelaire a figure of
modernity par excellence, auguring the anticipation of mourning and the problem of
remembering the dead as a lifelong cognitive dilemma. Chapter four, “Lethal Illusions,”
combines analysis of suicide in “La Corde” and “Le Poème du hachisch” with
interrogation of mimesis. If the intoxicant serves as suicide and mirror, the production of
illusion is the possibility and the fatal pathology of art. Yet art simultaneously channels
a truth understood as the revelation of illusions—not least the illusion of a life without
death.
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Dedication
To the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, who makes possible
these words, “O Death, where is your sting? / O Hades, where is your victory?” (1 Cor
15:55), and gave me the faith to begin and end this project.

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Contents

Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iv

List of Figures ............................................................................................................................ viii

Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... ix

Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1

Baudelaire: the Morbid Carrion Prince?.............................................................................. 1

Turning the Scholarly Gaze on Baudelairean Death ......................................................... 4

1. Dead Silent: “Une Mort héroïque,” “Le Rêve d’un curieux” and “Le Voyage” ............ 15

1.1 The Exposure and Erasure of Censorship ................................................................... 15

1.2 The One-Man Show of Death ....................................................................................... 30

1.3 Death in (In)conclusion .................................................................................................. 42

2. Voices Beyond the Grave: “Le Tir et le cimetière” and “Laquelle est la vraie?” ........... 52

2.1 Death, Language and Space .......................................................................................... 57

2.2 Cemeteries in Nineteenth-Century Paris .................................................................... 59

2.3 The Place and Space of the Cemetery .......................................................................... 62

2.4 Relating Through Voice ................................................................................................. 69

2.5 The Dead Woman Talks Back ....................................................................................... 71

2.6 Resisting Idealization ..................................................................................................... 74

2.7 The Dead Whisper their Loud Curses ......................................................................... 80

2.8 A Discourse of Nihilism ................................................................................................ 84
3. Baudelaire’s Widows: “A une passante,” “Les petites vieilles,” “Les Veuves” and “Le

Cygne” .......................................................................................................................................... 90
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3.1 Modernity in Black ......................................................................................................... 91

3.2 The (Senti)mentality of Mourning ............................................................................... 97

3.3 Mourning Before Death ................................................................................................. 99

3.4 Mourning on Repeat .................................................................................................... 102

3.5 The Cognition of Remembrance ................................................................................. 105

3.6 Modernity (Re)created Through Memory ................................................................ 109

3.7 The Androgyny of Grief .............................................................................................. 112

3.8 Mourning in Motion ..................................................................................................... 116

4. Lethal Illusions: “La Corde” and “Le Poème du hachisch” ............................................ 122

4.1 The Artist-Cum-Illusionist .......................................................................................... 123

4.2 The Model Object.......................................................................................................... 127

4.3 When Subjectivity Kills Himself................................................................................. 129

4.4 Unveiling, Unhanging, Dispelling ............................................................................. 133

4.6 Hashish: From Napoleon to Baudelaire .................................................................... 136

4.7 Anecdotal Intoxication ................................................................................................. 138

4.8 Suicide in Mirrors ......................................................................................................... 141

4.9 Failed Mind Reading .................................................................................................... 145

4.10 The Hankering for Hashish ....................................................................................... 148

4.11 Losing Your Mind ...................................................................................................... 151

4.12 The Mimesis of Suicide .............................................................................................. 156

Epilogue...................................................................................................................................... 159

Resisting Death and Keeping Death Alive ..................................................................... 159
vi
Bibliography .............................................................................................................................. 163

Biography ................................................................................................................................... 174

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List of Figures

Figure 1: Caricature of Baudelaire by Nadar ............................................................................ 3

Figure 2: Baudelaire's gravestone ............................................................................................. 53

Figure 3: "L'Enterrement" by Manet ......................................................................................... 56

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Acknowledgements
I am thankful for my Department’s generosity in having sent me to Dartmouth’s
Summer Institute of Cultural Studies back in 2007. The topic that year was death, which
became the problematic of my dissertation.
I thank my advisor, Deborah Jenson, whose impact on my work is evidenced by
my never-imagined exploration of mimesis and cognition. I am also thankful for the
research assistantship of working with Deborah at the Haiti Lab during the last year of
my dissertation, which no doubt supported the project. I am grateful to my other
committee members, David Bell, who expanded my understanding of nineteenth-
century French studies, and Roberto Dainotto, who encouraged me to think more deeply
about Fancioulle’s death “sur les planches” and what makes Baudelaire unique. Paol
Keineg, an expert in poetry, has been a wonderfully faithful and supportive reader
throughout.
The exchanges I have had with other faculty members, including Anne-Gaëlle
Saliot and Philip Stewart, have enriched this dissertation. Helen Solterer has also been
an encouraging presence.
Past professors from my undergraduate days at the University of Virginia have
had a lasting and profound influence. Thanks to Claire Lyu and her passion for
Baudelaire, the poet transformed, in my thinking, from being gross to admirable to
dissertation topic. Marva Barnett’s mentorship was something that I was very fortunate
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