ISBN: 0-88739-003-X
108 pp.
Size: 5 x 8
Paperback Original
Price: $6.95
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La Fanfarlo
Charles Baudelaire
The French poet Charles Baudelaire is perhaps most famous for his Fleurs du Mal (Flowers of Evil) and other poems. In 1847, however, he published his only novella, La Fanfarlo, which was a reflection of his bizarre relationship with his mistress, Jeanna Duval, and a scathing indictment of himself, personified in the novella as the character Samuel Cramer. Baudelaire parodies himself as "a great idler, an ambitious failure, and a notorius wretch," one "whose powers of imagination were as vast as its singularity abd laziness were absolute." Samuel Cramer represented for Baudelaire the man he himself was most afraid of becoming: the foolish Romantic, the dandy enslaved by his own twisted passions, the man of potential brilliance who squanders his talent through his lack of self-discipline.
Baudelaire sacrificed both are and financial security for the dancer Jeanne Duval, the model for La Fanfarlo. Hopelessly committed to keeping her in the luxury she demands, the poet compromises his artistic integrity, turning to journalism of the lowest order, degrading and humiliating himself both personally and professionally in an effort to satisfy a woman who brazenly mocks and cuckolds him. Like La Fanfarlo, Jeanne Duval was an actress, a beautiful but shallow woman who gave up her stage career to become a poet's mistress. By 1845, however, as a result of his limited income, Baudelaire was no loner capable of providing her with the lifestyle she had come to expect from him; at this point their relationship degenerated into a nightmare of disillusionment and pain for them both. Nevertheless, the relationship was sustained, and La Fanfarlo is the record of this remarkable affair.
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Review: "La Fanfarlo...[is] a subtle and penetrating study...Baudelaire has, in it, analyzed with rare insight his own personality at the time of his extravagant life at the Hotel Lauzun."
-Enid Starkie
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