In a nut shell, the word ‘flaneur’ can be simply described as ‘an idle man-about-town’ (Flaneur) or a type of loafer. This loosely holds true to a more in-depth definition by Charles Baudelaire in The Painter of Modern Life. Baudelaire delves deeper into the essence of a flaneur, describing it somewhat as a person driven by curiosity. One who is hungry for knowledge and experiences, in constant pursuit of the unknown. These factors, along with others, may force us to perceive the flaneur as a loafer. The persona in Song of Myself by Walt Whitman teeters on the line of ‘he is flaneur’ versus ‘he is not flaneur’, in accordance with Baudelaire’s definition that is. Whitman’s persona in Song of Myself undoubtedly has an abundance of experiences to share, and is therefore indeed an observer of the world; a man of the world, but whether he has pursued these experiences with the attitude, curiosity and hunger characteristic of a flaneur or merely had them by means of existing hinders his qualification to be flaneur.
Baudelaire’s flaneur definition spans even wider. Much of the definition being communicated through the behavior and characteristics of his main character Monsieur G. who he describes as ‘a man of the whole world, a man who understands the world and the mysterious and lawful reasons for all its uses…’(Baudelaire 7). An interpretation of this suggests that Baudelaire’s idea of a flaneur is someone with an openness and appreciation for much of every and anything unfamiliar to him. Baudelaire’s flaneur craves to be a part of a greater whole; ‘a spiritual citizen of the universe’, ‘a passionate spectator’ (Baudelaire 7). A cursory observation of Whitman’s persona reveals that he is ‘a man of the world’; he professes to contain ev...
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...er if the definition encompasses the globe he is definitely a flaneur. A final analysis of the poem as a whole reveals that the persona can be considered flaneur again due to the manner in which he relates the poem to us the readers. The poem is told in what feels like chunks of recollected experiences, quite pell-mell, much like how Monsieur G. absorbs the world. The persona in song of myself maintains a duality; he is a flaneur while not being flaneur according to Charles Baudelaire’s definition in The painter of Modern Life.
Works Cited
Baudelaire, Charles, and Jonathan Mayne. "The Artist, Man of the World, Man of the Crowd and
Child." The Painter of Modern Life, and Other Essays. London: Phaidon, 1964. N. pag. Print.
"Flaneur." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 01 Feb. 2014.
Whitman, Walt. Song of Myself. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, n.d. Print.
Paul Cezanne was a French artist born January 19th 1839. Cezanne was considered a Post-Impressionist painter that also helped with the development of the Cubist style. He was born in Aix-en-Provence a small southern French town and was the son of a wealthy banker, Louis-Auguste Cezanne. His mother was Anne Elisabeth Honorine Aubert. He also had two little sisters, Marie and Rose. Paul started going to Saint Joseph school in Aix, when he was just ten. In 1857 Paul started studying drawing from a Spanish Monk named, Joseph Gibert, at the Free Municipal School of Drawing in Aix. His father wanted him to obtain a lucrative profession, so in 1858 he began attending the University of Aix, studying law; still taking art classes. After about a year studying law, Cezanne finally decided to tell his father he wanted to move to Paris to pursue a profession as an artist. His father was not pleased with his decision, but eventually agreed.
Watts, Steven. “The Young Artist as Social Visionary” The Romance of Real Life. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. pp. 49-70.
Wing,N. (1986). The Limits of Narrative: Essays on Baudelaire, Flaubert, Rimbaudand Mallarme . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press . p57.
Gustave Flaubert incorporates and composes a realistic piece of literature using realistic literature techniques in his short story, “A Simple Heart.” Flaubert accomplishes this through telling a story that mimics the real life of Félicité, and writing fiction that deliberately cuts across different class hierarchies; through this method, Flaubert
Art is said to be the expression of the soul; however, quite often, one is unable to truly know the artist by his or her works alone. So is the case of the postimpressionist painter Paul Gauguin. while the paintings of Paul Gauguin do not reveal all of his life, the paintings are very much so a reflection of Gauguin’s views on life.
The painting is intimate, almost as if was not meant for the eyes of the viewer. The mother gently holds the baby, within her arms, as she feeds him. The mother’s gaze is met by the child as it reaches out to touch her face. The background is simple, emphasizing the closeness between the mother and child, much like Le Brun’s piece. Additionally, Cassatt’s The Child's Bath, 1893 “with its striking and unorthodox composition, is one of Cassatt’s masterworks” (“The Child's Bath”). Within this composition, she employed the use of unconventional devices such as cropped forms, bold patterns and outlines, and a flattened perspective (“The Child's Bath”). Cassatt utilizes a pastel-like color scheme, exemplifying the delicateness and tenderness between the mother and her bathing child. Her brush strokes are swift and gentle, again, suggesting the passionate, yet soft, love the mother has for her child. The elevated vantage point invites the viewer to observe this intimate moment, but not to
...rization and perception in this story leads the reader to dissect the underground man’s thinking. Flaubert’s approach to “A Simple Heart” lends the reader to feels sorry for Felicite not having a life of her own yet giving it all to the family. Even though she lived her life for the family she had a life of caring for someone she loved as it is will lives of everyday people.
(A critique of Walt Whitman’s themes and ideas in Song of Myself 6, 46, 47)
Walt Whitman embraces this power to use nature in his work "Song of Myself." As Emerson's principle outlined, Whitman was able to take images of nature and make them represent something surprising, new, and sometimes slightly obscene. Emerson discusses the idea of obscene images in nature taking on acc...
Gustave Flaubert incorporates and composes a realistic piece of literature using realistic literaryature techniques in his short story, “A Simple Heart.” Flaubert accomplishes this through telling a story that mimics the real life of Félicité, and writing fiction that deliberately cuts across different class hierarchies; through this method, Flaubert is able to give the reader a clear understanding of the whole society. Flaubert makes the unvarnished truth about simple hearts clear by exposing a clear replica of a realistic story, therefore, allowing the reader to clearly understand the society and the different classes of characters.
Gibbs, Beverly Jean. "Impressionism as a Literary Movement." The Modern Language Journal 36.4 (1952): 175-83. JSTOR. Web. 14 Jan. 2014.
The film “Modern Times,” directed by Charlie Chaplin, is set in the mid nineteen thirties. This time frame places the characters in the middle of the Great Depression and the industrial revolution. The film depicts the lifestyle and quality of living for people in this era by showing a factory worker who cannot take the monotony of working on an assembly line. The film follows the factory worker through many of his adventures throughout the film. The film’s main stars are Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard.
Whitman uses great craft in this poem to make the reader ponder so many different meanings of one simple object. Something like grass is so common that we don’t even realize that it really is everywhere around us. This poem is very meaningful because of its originality and the images and ideas really stick with the reader b...
One very important topic that major American authors Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson incorporated into their writing was the idea of the “self” or “self-identity”. Both Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson were prolific major American poets and many of the topics they chose to write about involved aspects of transcendentalism. Though Whitman and Dickinson wrote about some of the same topics, they did not share the same meanings, especially with the description of “self”. Published in 1855 within a poetry collection called Leaves of Grass, “Song of Myself” gives a look into how Walt Whitman felt about self-identity. Whitman uses a first person narrator to describe the “self” as the celebration of the individual through personal exploration and gaining personal experience. In Emily Dickinson’s poem, “I heard a Fly buzz when I died” published in 1896 as part of Poems by Emily Dickinson (third series), she alludes that the key to identifying the “self” is sight.
Lewis Carroll may have created a whole new world for his Alice to explore, but Flaubert had the harder job. He had to replicate the world that everyone knows, taking time to explore the very details that make this world real and tangible. Whether it be dust accumulating on furniture, everyday people plodding through mud to get to work, or nagging mothers, Flaubert details images and impressions that most overlook, but which truly constitute reality. Emma tries her best to ignore this reality, but it confronts her insistently, reminding her daily of all the things she dee...