Description
Book SynopsisOffering a novel reading of Baudelaire's ambivalent engagement with the eighteenth-century, Grotesque Figures examines nineteenth-century ideological debates over French identity, Rousseau's political and artistic legacy, the aesthetic and political significance of the rococo, and the presence of the grotesque in the modern.
Trade ReviewGrotesque Figures is an important work that rethinks the boundary between eighteenth and nineteenth century studies, offering nuanced interpretations of Rousseau, Baudelaire, and the modernity they represent. French Forum 2005 This well argued text on pantomime offers a fascinating investigation of a subgenre of British theater. -- Elisabeth Heard Scriblerian 2006 A fresh context for looking at Baudelaire. -- Patricia A. Ward L'Esprit Createur 2006 Swain's wonderful explication of 'La Corde' alone is worth the price of the book. -- Johnson Kent Wright Journal of Modern History 2006 Her comparative analysis of Rousseau's writings and Baudelaire's prose poems are often breathtakingly original, themselves extraordinary hybrids of the social, the historical, the political, and the poetic. -- Tammy Berberi Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association 2007 Swain's reading of Baudelaire's reception of Rousseau is provocative and stimulating. -- Thomas Cooksey South Atlantic Review 2008
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Grotesque: Definitions and Figures
2. Rococo Rhetoric: Figures of the Past in "Le Poème du hachisch"
3. Identity Politics: "Rousseau" and "France" in the Mid-Nineteenth Century
4. Baudelaire's Physiologie: Rousseau as Caricature and Type in the Prose Poems
5. Machines, Monsters, and Men: Realism and the Modern Grotesque
6. The Sociopolitical Implications of the Grotesque: "Opéra" and "Les Yeux des pauvres"
7. Rousseau, Trauma, and Fetishism: "Le Vieux Saltimbanque"
Conclusion
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
