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The Critique Of Montesquieu And Charles Baudelaire

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Separated by nearly 150 years of history, Montesquieu and Charles Baudelaire, both high society Frenchman, use their platforms as writers to critique and comment on French society and modernity. Nonetheless, despite their common societal status and nationality, Montesquieu and Baudelaire focus on different aspects of French society. For Montesquieu in the Persian Letters written in 1721, the strengthening French monarchy represents a growing threat to French society. Baudelaire in The Painter of Modern Life, “Eyes of the Poor”, "The Modern Public and Photography", written in 1863, 1855, and 185, critiques photography as an art form and modernity as a whole. For Baudelaire, photography and modernity present superficial lifestyle and artificial …show more content…

In “Eyes of the Poor,” a selection from Poetry in Prose, Baudelaire’s perspective takes on the form of an upper-class man. While the character in the poem social standing mimics that of Baudelaire's, the differing perspective allows Baudelaire to give criticism while simultaneously distancing himself from the scene. "[They] had promised one another that [they] would think the same thoughts and that [their] two souls should become one soul; a dream which is not original." There is an inauthenticity that derives from Baudelaire's personage’s dreams: they are common and unattainable. By hiding his identity behind the character of his poem, Baudelaire is more effective in criticizing the modern society.
More so, "Eyes of the Poor" is written in a very deliberate matter. Taken from Poetry in Prose, Baudelaire's writing style demonstrates the art Baudelaire admires, while describing the society Baudelaire witnesses growing more and more artificial.
Now the French public...is singularly incapable of feeling the dreaming or of admiration, wants to have the thrill of surprise by means that are alien to art; ...[the French Public] is incapable of deriving ecstasy from the means of true

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