WALTER BENJAMIN
189
a pro piti a tory
I
uster. T he
fliineur
is still on the thresho ld, o f th e city as
o f the bourgeois class. either has yet engulfed him: in neither is he a t
home. He seeks refuge in the crowd. Earl y contributi ons to a phys iog–
nomi cs o f th e crowd are to be found in Engels and Poe. T he crowd is
the veil th rough which the famili a r ci ty lures the
fl aneur
like a
phantasmagori a. In it the city is now a landscape, now a room . Bo th ,
then, consti tute the department tore tha t p uts even
fl anerie
to use for
commodity circul a ti on . T he depa rtment store is the
fl aneur's
las t
p racti cal joke.
In the
f laneur
the intelli gentsia pays a visit to the ma rketp lace,
os tensibl y to look around , yet in rea lity to find a buyer. In this
intermedi a te ph ase, in whi ch it still has pa trons but is already begin–
ning to famili a rize itself with th e market, it appears as boh emi ani sm.
T he uncerta inty of its politi ca l fun cti on corresponds to the uncerta inty
of its economi c pos iti on . T his is mos t strikingly expressed in the
p rofess iona l con spira tors, who are certa inl y a pa rt of Bohemi a . T heir
fi rs t fi eld of acti vity is the army; later it becomes the petit bourgeo isie,
occasion ally the proletaria t. Yet thi s stra tum sees its opponents in the
rea l leaders of the la tter. T he
Communist Manif esto
p ut an end to their
po liti cal ex istence. Baudelaire's poetry draws its strength from the
rebellio us emo ti onalism of this group. He th rows his lot in with the
asocial. Hi s onl y sexual communi on is rea li zed with a whore.
Faci lis descensus Averni
Virgil ,
Aeneid
Wh a t is unique in Baudela ire's poetry is tha t the images of women
and dea th are p ermea ted by a third , tha t of Paris. T he P aris of his
poems is a ubmerged city, more submarine than subterranean . T he
chtho ni c elements of the city-its topographical forma tion , the o ld
deserted bed of the Seine-doubtl ess left their impress ion o n his work .
Yet wha t is decisive in Baudelaire's " dea thl y idyll " o f the city is a
social, modern su bs tra tum. Modernity is a main accent in hi s poetry.
He sha tters the ideal as spl een
(Sp leen et Idea l ).
But it is precisely
modernity tha t is a lways quoting primeva l history. This ha ppens here
through the ambi guity a ttending the social rela tionships and products
of this epoch . Ambi guity is th e pictori al image of dialectics, the law of
di alec tics seen a t a standstill. T hi s standstill is uto pia and the dialectic
image therefo re a dream image. Such an image is presented by th e pure
commodity: as feti sh . Such an image are the arcades, which a re bo th
ho use and stars. Such an image is the pros titute, who is sa leswoman
and wares in one.
