Baudelaire

Rating:
Summary: You will definately need to really understand his writing be
Review: I thought this book was difficult to get into to but there are sharp questions to hit on throughtout it.

Rating:
Summary: Familiarity With Baudelaire a Must...
Review: Rather than a biography of Baudelaire or a critical examination of his works, this book (actually more like a lengthy essay) is an exhaustive existential psychoanalysis of the poet by Mr. Sarte, based on images from his poems, correspondence with friends and family, his essays on poetry and art... it's kind of a harsh judgement on the guy, actually, stating in no uncertain terms that Baudelaire was an extremely repressed and control-obsessed individual whose greatest creation and greatest failure was his public persona. While reading this, I couldn't help but wonder what the motivation for behind it all was... I can't say I agree with all of his conclusions (even if I did, should it make me enjoy his poetry any more or less?), but it's thought-provoking in the very least.

Rating:
Summary: brilliant existential psychoanalysis of baudelaire
Review: this book completely changed the way i view myself and others. sartre takes his philosophy and applies it to baudelaire in the form of an existential psychoanalysis, and, more than anything else, reveals more plainly what his philosophy really means.
an existential psychoanalysis, as opposed to a freudian psychoanalysis, attempts to discover the reason behind the choices made in a person's life without positing any sort of subconscious but rather positing that one's choice is entirely uncompelled. in this way, the "style" of an individual's life is revealed.
baudelaire is certainly a very interesting character (to say the least) and you can probably imagine how interesting an existential psychoanalysis of him would be (by sartre of all people!), and, in my case, it was even better than i imagined. sartre reveals baudelaire's perpetual, impossible struggle of wanting to be objectified and transcendent, his abiding by a banal moral code only so he can break it and hold himself up as evil, and so much more. this is one of those books that say so much that no summary would do it justice unless it were as long as the actual book.
this book is a much easier to read than Being and Nothingness, but you do need to know the fundamentals of sartre's philosophy before you read this, since he doesnt go over it in this book. this book not only made a much bigger change in my life than B+N, but it also clarified and gave more relevancy and meaning to the contents of B+N.

very highly recommended

p.s. i dont know how _accurate_ sartres psychoanalysis actually is (at times he does seem to be way too sure of his opinions as to why baudelaire did what he did; and he has unique opinions, to put it kindly), but i advise the reader to just take baudelaire as a fictional character created by sartre and based on his conception of the actual baudelaire.

Rating:
Summary: brilliant existential psychoanalysis of baudelaire
Review: this book completely changed the way i view myself and others. sartre takes his philosophy and applies it to baudelaire in the form of an existential psychoanalysis, and, more than anything else, reveals more plainly what his philosophy really means.
an existential psychoanalysis, as opposed to a freudian psychoanalysis, attempts to discover the reason behind the choices made in a person's life without positing any sort of subconscious but rather positing that one's choice is entirely uncompelled. in this way, the "style" of an individual's life is revealed.
baudelaire is certainly a very interesting character (to say the least) and you can probably imagine how interesting an existential psychoanalysis of him would be (by sartre of all people!), and, in my case, it was even better than i imagined. sartre reveals baudelaire's perpetual, impossible struggle of wanting to be objectified and transcendent, his abiding by a banal moral code only so he can break it and hold himself up as evil, and so much more. this is one of those books that say so much that no summary would do it justice unless it were as long as the actual book.
this book is a much easier to read than Being and Nothingness, but you do need to know the fundamentals of sartre's philosophy before you read this, since he doesnt go over it in this book. this book not only made a much bigger change in my life than B+N, but it also clarified and gave more relevancy and meaning to the contents of B+N.

very highly recommended

p.s. i dont know how _accurate_ sartres psychoanalysis actually is (at times he does seem to be way too sure of his opinions as to why baudelaire did what he did; and he has unique opinions, to put it kindly), but i advise the reader to just take baudelaire as a fictional character created by sartre and based on his conception of the actual baudelaire.