“I would gladly write only for the dead”: success and reception in Baudelaire

Abstract

This article seeks to approach the themes of success and reception of and in Charles Baudelaire’s work. Concerning reception, it is about the author’s perspective, his expectations regarding his work and the reader of the nineteenth century. On success, my starting point is Maurice Blanchot’s essay “L’échec de Baudelaire”, published in the book La part du feu (1949). In this sense, the German historian Reinhart Koselleck’s concept of the “horizon of expectations” ([1979] 2006) helps me glimpse at possible paths of research on the notion of success from correspondence – especially letters to the mother – and the author’s work. Baudelaire’s life was a failure for whom? For whom does the poet write? What are his expectations and apprehensions about his work? After all, what is success? Thus, what this reflection seeks to highlight are the debates around what would be a successful life and the poet’s expectations regarding his work, the readers and the permanence of his name in French literature.