Approaches to Teaching Baudelaire's Prose Poems

by Cheryl Krueger (Editor)

Overview

A prolific poet, art critic, essayist, and translator, Charles Baudelaire is best known for his volumes of verse (Les Fleurs du Mal [Flowers of Evil]) and prose poems (Le Spleen de Paris [Paris Spleen]). This volume explores his prose poems, which depict Paris during the Second Empire and offer compelling and fraught representations of urban expansion, social change, and modernity.

Part 1, "Materials," surveys the valuable resources available for teaching Baudelaire, including editions and translations of his oeuvre, historical accounts of his life and writing, scholarly works, and online databases. In Part 2, "Approaches," experienced instructors present strategies for teaching critical debates on Baudelaire's prose poems, addressing topics such as translation theory, literary genre, alterity, poetics, narrative theory, and ethics as well as the shifting social, economic, and political terrain of the nineteenth century in France and beyond. The essays offer interdisciplinary connections and outline traditional and fresh approaches for teaching Baudelaire's prose poems in a wide range of classroom contexts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781603292733
Publisher:	Modern Language Association
Publication date:	06/01/2017
Series:	Approaches to Teaching World Literature , #142
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	212
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Cheryl Krueger is associate professor of French at the University of Virginia. She is the author of The Art of Procrastination: Baudelaire's Poetry in Prose and coauthor of Tâches d'encre and Mise-en-scène: Cinéma et lecture. Her articles on French literature, film, and cultural studies have appeared in a variety of journals. Her current book project treats the culture and poetics of olfaction and perfume in nineteenth-century France.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Preface xi

Part 1 Materials Cheryl Krueger

Editions and Translations 3

The Instructors Library 4

Baudelaire's Life and Work

Historical and Social Contexts

The Prose Poem Genre in France

Reception and Influence outside France

Studies of Baudelaire's Prose Poems

Teaching Literature in Foreign Language Programs

Literature and the Humanities

Courses 7

Part 2 Approaches

Introduction Cheryl Krueger 11

Reading Strategies

The Lyric Self and Its Others in Baudelaire's Petits Poèmes en prose: Teaching Strategies Laurence M. Porter 18

A Renewed Relationship with Words: Reacting to Evil through. "Le Mauvais Vitrier" Claire Chi-ah Lyu 29

Who Is the "Je" of Baudelaire's Le Spleen de Paris? Engaging Undergraduate Students in the Study of Narrative Voice and Polyphony Scott M. Powers 37

What's the Point? Allegory and the Prose Poems Scott Carpenter 45

An Ethical Reading of Baudelaire's Prose Poems Edward K. Kaplan 54

Literary and Aesthetic Currents

(Post-)Romantic Vision in Le Spleen de Paris Stamos Metzidakis 64

The Poet's Lost Halo-Reading Paris Spleen with Walter Benjamin in Baudelaire-Ville Beryl Schlossman 73

Baudelaire Modern and Antimodern: Le Spleen de Paris in an Interdisciplinary Course on Modernity Joseph Acquisto 88

Social and Cultural Intersections

How to Read (Women) in Baudelaire's Prose Poems Maria Scott 96

Pedagogies of Violence: A Tour through Baudelaire's Fight Clubs Debarati Sanyal 107

The Glaziers Cry: Dissonance in Baudelaire's Prose Poems Aimée Boutin 120

Worlding Baudelaire: Geography, Genre, and Translation Françoise Lionnet 128

The Prose Poems across the Curriculum

"L'Invitation au voyage": A Multiliteracies Approach to Teaching Genre in an Advanced Writing Course Heather Willis Allen Kate Paesani 139

The Rhetoric of Intermediality: Teaching Baudelaire's "L'Invitation au voyage" in a Translation Class Larson Powell 150

Translation Studies and the Prose Poems Peter Connor 158

Print and Digital Culture

The Poet as Journalist: Teaching Baudelaire's Prose Poems with the History of the Press Catherine Nesci 166

Le Spleen de Paris and the Cyberflâneur Cheryl Krueger 176

Notes on Contributors 185

Survey Respondents 189

Works Cited 191

Index of Names 209

Editorial Reviews

"This [volume] would make a very useful guide to teaching Le Spleen de Paris, a work that is both accessible to a wide range of students and interestingly rich in problems for teacher and student alike." —Rosemary Lloyd, professor emerita, Indiana University, Bloomington

From the Publisher