Nature, culture and decadence: a study of the theological foundations of anti-modernity in Baudelaire

• Grant number: 14/09902-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: August 01, 2014
• End date: May 09, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Literature Theory
• Principal Investigator: Marcos Antonio Siscar
• Grantee: Eduardo Horta Nassif Veras
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 14/21396-2 - Nature, culture and decadence: a study of the theological foundations of anti-modernity in Baudelaire, BE.EP.PD

Abstract

This postdoctoral project is a continuation of my PhD research, in which I analysed the main links between Baudelaire's oeuvre - critical, philosophical and poetic - and the Judeo-Christian myth of the Fall. In a consideration of the so-called lack of continuity between philosophical and theological reflections and of a more properly poetic production of the French writer, at times outlined by critics, I intend to study the passage for poetry not as a mere exercise in literary illustration of a particular worldview, but as the very same intensification of a critical reflection on modernity that permeates the entire work of the French writer. In dialogue with the theological tradition of Christianity, with which Baudelaire proves to be connected, I, finally, intend to analyze the relationship between the representation - philosophical and aesthetic - of nature, Baudelairian opposition to certain elements of modern culture and the problem of decay, understood here not only as a philosophical category, but especially as a poetic symbol, in a ricSurian perspective.