2487681964

New Notes on C. A. Bristed, Poe, and Baudelaire

to chatting with an American and to predominant American opin-ions about Poe’s genius and unstable life in his essay, “Edgar Allan Poe, sa vie et ses ouvrages,” published in the Revue de Paris in March and April of 1852.

Si vous cansez avec un Americain, et si vous lui parlez de M. Poe, il vous avouera son genie; \olontiers meme, peut-etre en sera-t-il fier, mais il finira par vous dire avec un ton superieur: mais moi, je suis un homme positif; puis, avec un petit air sardoniąue, il vous parlera de ces grands esprits ąui ne savent rien consewer; il vous parlera de la vie debraillee de M. Poe, de son haleine alcoolisee, ąui avait pris feu a la flamme dune chandelle, de ses habi-tudes errantes [...].

From this observation, based on the possible encounter with Bristed and on encounters with other Americans, and certainly based on his reading, Baudelaire developed a theory of American society and its incapacity for pity for “un poete que la douleur et 1’isolement pouvaient rendre fou.” Baudelaire would give a slightly different version of this materiał in his 1856 essay, “Edgar Poe, sa vie et ses ceuvres,” published as a preface to his transla-tion of the Histoires extraordinaires }

¹ On Bristed, Poe, and Baudelaire, see James S. Patty, “Morę Light on Baudelaire and Poe: C.A. Bristed, an American in Paris,” Romance Quarterly, 43 (summer 1996), 166-175, hereafter cited as Patty. On the provenance of Bristed’s copy of the Fleurs du Mai, see notę 44, p. 175. The copy was most recently in a private European col-lection and was acąuired by the Vanderbilt Library from the book dealer, Michel Bouvier. This essay completes the research of Bandy and Patty and answers some ąuestions raised by the Patty article.

The pertinent passages in Baudelaire are found in the (Euvres completes, ed. Claude Pichois (Paris; Gallimard, 1976), II, 251-252 (passage cited) and 298-299.

113