Overview

Baudelaire’s Bitter Metaphysics: Anti-Nihilist Readings by Fondane, Benjamin, and Sartre reconstructs a philosophical trialogue that might have been expected to take place between Benjamin Fondane, Walter Benjamin, and Jean-Paul Sartre over their philosophical readings of Charles Baudelaire, an exchange preempted by the untimely deaths of two of the interlocutors during the Nazi holocaust. Why did three of Europe’s sharpest minds respond to the terror of 1933-45 by writing about a long-dead poet? Aaron Brice Cummings argues that Fondane, Benjamin, and Sartre turned to the poet of nihilism’s abyss because they recognized a fact of cultural history that remains relevant today: until sometime in the 2080s, the literary world will have to confront (even if to deny) the two-century window forecast by Nietzsche as the age of cultural and existential nihilism. Accordingly, the author examines the bitter metaphysics latent in Baudelaire’s motifs of the abyss, clocks, brutes, streets, and bored dandies. In so doing, this book confronts the nothingness which modern life encounters in the heart of art, ethics, ideality, time, memory, history, urban life, and religion.

Full Product Details

Author:   Aaron Brice Cummings
Publisher:   Lexington Books
Imprint:   Lexington Books/Fortress Academic
Dimensions:   Width: 16.10cm , Height: 2.40cm , Length: 23.70cm
Weight:   0.635kg
ISBN:  

9781666961751

ISBN 10:   1666961752
Pages:   342
Publication Date:   12 September 2024
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Abbreviations in Citations Chapter One: Baudelaire the Moralist Chapter Two: Nietzsche’s Problem of Socrates, or the Abyss of Absurdity Chapter Three: Three Experiences of the Abyss: Fondane, Benjamin, Sartre Chapter Four: “Le Gouffre” from Pascal to Baudelaire Chapter Five: Geometric versus Poetic Method, or Baudelaire versus Descartes Chapter Six: Fondane and Sartre Listen to the Objections of the Abyss Chapter Seven: Cultural Nihilism: The Transvaluation of Experience Chapter Eight: Of Turtles, Dogs, and Dandies: Metaphors for Splenetic, Poetic Trauma Chapter Nine: Existential Failure: From Kierkegaard to Baudelaire Chapter Ten: Restoring Memory to Experience: From Baudelaire to Bergson Chapter Eleven: Repetition and Recurrence: The Meaning of a Moment Chapter Twelve: Materialities of Urban Nihilism in Baudelaire’s Paris Chapter Thirteen: Ennui: The Religious Experience of Modernity Conclusion Bibliography About the Author

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Aaron Brice Cummings is adjunct instructor of history at Texas A&M University-Commerce.

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