"Prendre un Bain De Multitude": Origins of the Flâneur in Baudelaire's Translations of De Quincey

Abstract

abstract:For many contemporary readers, the flâneur is synonymous with the Paris of Baudelaire, its Haussmannised Grands Boulevards, and the so-called "bain de multitude"—that is, the idea of the crowd as immersive spectacle. In his reading of Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin points to texts like "Les Foules," from Le Spleen de Paris, as well as "L'Homme des foules," a translation of Poe, as interpretive keys to understanding the Baudelairian flâneur. However, Benjamin overlooks an earlier and arguably more important text of Baudelaire's on the subject: 1860's Les Paradis artificiels. Baudelaire's extended study of drug use and creativity is comprised mainly of a translation and adaptation of Thomas De Quincey's 1821 memoir, the Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. As their titles suggest, both the Confessions and Les Paradis artificiels are centred mainly on addiction; but they are also, on a core level, texts about modernity, the urban space, and the flâneur (or the "peripatetic," as De Quincey calls him). This article considers Baudelaire's translation of De Quincey's crowdscapes in Les Paradis artificiels and the re-emergence of De Quinceyan imagery and expressions in Baudelaire's subsequent writing on flânerie and the modern city.