CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

A STUDY

BY

ARTHUR SYMONS

LONDON

ELKIN MATHEWS

CORK STREET

MCMXX

TO

JOHN QUINN

Émile De Roy, 1844

CONTENTS

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE: A STUDY.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND NOTES.
NOTES.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Émile de Roy, 1844. Frontispiece

	I.	Jeanne Duval: Drawing by Baudelaire, 1860.
	II.	Baudelaire, designed by himself, 1848.
	III.	Les fleurs du mal, 1857.
	IV.	Les paradis artificiels, 1861.
	V.	Autograph Letter of Baudelaire to Monsieur de Broise, 1859.
	VI.	Gustave Courbet, 1848.
	VII.	Édouard Manet, 1862.
	VIII.	Édouard Manet, 1865.
	IX.	Autograph Letter of Baudelaire to Charles Asselineau, 1865.

BAUDELAIRE: A STUDY

I

When Baudelaire is great, when his genius is at its highest pointof imaginative creation, of imaginative criticism, it is never whenhe works by implication—as the great men who are pure artists (forinstance, Shakespeare) work by implication only—but always from hispersonal point of view being simply infallible and impeccable. The pureartist, it has been said, never asserts: and the instances are farfrom being numerous; Balzac asserts, and Balzac is always absolutelyjust in all his assertions: he whose analysis of modern Society—LaComédie Humaine—verges almost always on creation; and despite certaindeficiencies in technique and in style, he remains the greatest of allnovelists. As for Baudelaire, he rarely asserts; he more often suggestsor divines—with that exquisite desire of perfect and just work thatis always in him. With his keen vision he rarely misses the essential;with his subtle and sifted prose he rarely fails in characterizingthe right man in the right way and the wrong man—the man who is notan artist—in forms of ironical condemnation. Shelley in his time andBlake in his time gave g

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