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The Evolution Of Dandyism In Baudelaire's Thought: Dandy, Hero And Saint, Kenneth Sutherland Mckellar

Digitized Theses

As a "dandy-litterateur" Baudelaire was the inheritor of a literary tradition which originated in England and which was subsequently established in France by writers such as Balzac, Gautier, Musset, Sue and, in particular, Barbey d'Aurevilly. In his study Du dandysme et de George Brummell, Barbey struggled to find a succinct definition of dandyism, and admitted: "Ceci est presque aussi difficile a decrire qu'a definir.";Throughout his works Baudelaire is repeatedly preoccupied by an attempt to conceptualise dandyism, not only as a social and philosophical stance, but as a literary style as well. While many critics have touched at least briefly upon …