Chapter 6 Poetics of the Parisian Underclass in the Works of Baudelaire and Prévert
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Abstract
This chapter compares how Paris-based poets Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) and Jacques Prévert (1900–1977) represent the experience of the Parisian lower class in their works. My analysis relies on an indirect debate that I reveal between the two authors on issues related to the condition of the underclass as witnessed in the city’s streets. In this “conversation,” Prévert responds to Baudelaire’s views via intertextual references. By examining this implicit dialogue, I demonstrate the way the two poets articulate the literary trope of the disinherited Parisians parallels larger societal changes occurring in the West between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In particular, I show how Baudelaire’s and Prévert’s depictions of the underprivileged bear witness to the establishment of a new aesthetic perspective, economic logic, and epistemic system. First, I explore how representing the lower class of the French capital fits the definition of a modern aesthetics. I also look at how these depictions comment on modern capitalism, and more generally on industrialization and technical progress at the root of this new economic model. Finally, as I highlight Baudelaire’s and Prévert’s diverging opinions regarding possible existential contentment for the Parisian poor, I reveal how the two authors’ opposing views mirror the progressive shift toward secular episteme that happens in Western thought starting in the nineteenth century.