Jean-Paul Sartre published Baudelaire originally in 1947. He did not divide it into chapters. Evidently the author’s life included nine months as a German prisoner during WWII in 1940, before taking part in the French resistance. Per some accounts, he also had trouble distinguishing himself from the Deutsche as a philosopher. These things may have been consistent with his completely negative treatment of a troubled man who was also a poet and important practitioner of the same native tongue.
Some reviewers of the book might have described it as an obloquy, so it is debatable as to whether it advances existentialist philosophy in relation to other fields. For context, you can also get a sense of Sartre’s notions of existentialism from Nausea, published in 1938, when he was about 33. It is an enjoyable novel, with a different flavor than Baudelaire. Though it does not provide the reader any sense of thrill with the world, there is at least comfort at the conclusion and the potential for the protagonist, if that is the right term, to pull through.
Andy Martin, evidently a francophone, does put quotations around the word nausea in his detailed and well-presented New York Times pieceon Sartre that is included in The Stone Reader (originally learned of here). However, anyone who has taken the time to comprehensively review the life and works of the existentialist, an important intellectual, must have some difficulty with his treatment of Baudelaire when his or her true discipline is the French language.
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| Photo Credit: Marija Zaric, Unsplash |
Spirituality is something different that perhaps also would conflict with the book. (It could be helpful to identify myself as an agnostic/atheist.) There is no genuine spirituality in this existentialism: if one has faith in his or her identity, or outlook, another human being is unlikely to be categorized as in Baudelaire. Even an exterminator killing pests, a laboratory technician performing experiments on animals; and almost certainly, a medical student dissecting a cadaver; could typically be regarded as viewing life forms more positively, affirmatively, or respectfully, than Sartre in his treatment of the 19th century Parisian poet. He does not provide the means for a eulogy as the book is a relentless, posthumous condemnation.
There is an adage that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Sartre has nothing nice to say about Baudelaire and spends 190 pages on him. With that said though, it could be nice for philosophy to set itself apart from other disciplines, and maybe the book is a radical way to do it.
Here is a quote that does not include most of the harder-core commentary:
…he chose to advance backward with his face turned toward the past, crouching on the floor of the car which was taking him away with his eyes fixated on the disappearing road. Few existences have been more stagnant than his. For him the dye was already cast at the age of twenty-one. Everything had stopped. He had had his chance and lost for ever. By 1846 he had spent half his capital, written most of his poems, given his relations with his parents their definitive form, contracted the venereal disease which slowly rotted him, met the woman who would weigh like lead on every hour of his life and made the voyage which provided the whole of his work with exotic images (Page 163).
Sartre himself was actually known for his ability as a writer. He was selected for a Nobel prize in literature in 1964. He refused it.
He should be important to anyone pursuing French. He might have also succeeded in different ways with Baudelaire, although one might wonder if he has actually been forced to one knee by the Germans. An analyst and translator like Martin must have some trouble with it. If Sartre’s existentialism has merit or appeal, an earlier work such as Nausea at least allows it to be something relatively likeable for everyone else.