752
PARTISAN REVIEW
EXI STENTIAL ANALYSIS
BAUDELAIRE>. By
Je<'!n-P~ul S~rtre.
New Directions. $1.50.
Originally written as an introduction to a French collection
of Baudelaire's private journals, diaries, and letters, this essay is now
published, in a fine translation by Martin Turnell, as a separate study
and as an exercise in what M. Sartre calls "existential psychoanalysis."
In design and execution it reminds one of the "Portrait of an Antisemite."
Both portraits are constructed in accordance with precise metaphysical
measurements. There is the basic axiom: the "free choice" made by
the individual when confronted with the irreconcilable existential dilem–
ma between "existence" and "being"; to be a rock, in the case of the
antisemite, "to
exist
for himself as he
was
for others," in the case of
Baudelaire. The rest is a matter of deducing or filling in the particular,
empirical details. Thus Baudelaire's "life is simply (sic!) the story of
the failure of this attempt."
This presentation lends to the essay a striking coherence and clarity;
all the material assembled fits into a neat system internally consistent
and necessary. Thus what, at first, appears arbitrary and accidental,
hence, cruel and undeserved-Baudelaire's mother and stepfather, his
mulatto mistress, his syphilis, the struggle with poverty, the condemna–
tion and unsavory publicity of his poems, the rebuff of the Academy,
the premature and horrible death-all this when seen within the context
of the original "choice," as Sartre sees it, was necessary and deserved.
Similarly
Baud~laire's
personality-his dandyism, his Manichean obses–
sion with evil, sin, guilt, and atonement, the desire to inspire hOITor
and disgust, the laziness, ennui, and fear of solitude, the desperate
attempts to work out simple bourgeois precepts for "hygiene, conduct,
and morality," the sado-masochistic concept of love, the cult of
volupte,
the intellectual lucidity, the hatred of nature (except for stones, precious
metals, perfumes, the sea, ships, and cats), the love for the big city,
the rejection of urban technology and urban masses, the fantasies about
exotic travels, the inability to undertake any real journey-all these per–
plexing and contradictory aspects of Baudelaire's personality M. Sartre
has assembled and presented, with great skill, as consequences of and
exhibits for the existentialist thesis.
In doing this, he has also made, as Mr. Turnell points out in a
perceptive introduction, a number of points highly original and provoca–
tive. Nevertheless, I think that, in the long run, despite these genuine
insights, the neat, sharp outlines of this portrait are both deceptive and
deficient. The essay is, in fact, less satisfactory than the "Portrait of
