Baudelaire and Transparency

Abstract

In an unpublished text on La Fanfarlo in 2011, I analysed the decadence of the paratheatrical spaces central to the novel, namely the boudoirs. Published in 1847, the novel followed others of the July Monarchy which broke with traditional representations of the backstage, thereafter centralizing society’s opaque mechanics – including class mobility – within hidden and ‘overexploited’, theatrical environments.[i] In La Fanfarlo, a writer operates a calculated press campaign which eventually permits him access to the title character.  The reversal of both protagonists’ opinions occurs in paratheatrical spaces: while La Fanfarlo breaks into tears immediately upon sight of her worst critic in a dressing room, an enthralled Cramer spends several evenings watching her performance ‘like a Turk on opium’[ii] in his theatre box. 

[i] Jean-Claude Yon, ‘La critique au crayon: L’exemple de La Vie Parisienne,’ in Le miel et le fiel, ed. by Mariane Bury and Hélène Laplace-Claverie (Paris: PUPS, 2008), pp. 73-74. All translations are my own.

[ii] Charles Baudelaire, La Fanfarlo (Paris: Flammarion, 1987), pp. 59-63. Further references are cited parenthetically in the text.