Perceptions of the city
In a prose poem entitled Les Foules , Baudelaire muses on the paradox of crowds: how one becomes unrecognizable and invisible by virtue of being immersed in a large group of people. He states, ‘ Multitude, solitude: termes égaux et convertibles. ’ In this, Baudelaire finds the crux of the city’s nature: to be in a city is to be among millions of people, and that can make you indistinguishable from everyone else. And it is this idea that traverses in many ways all the literary works that I have looked at in this essay: that the city ultimately is a great leveller, that solitude and multitude are in the end the two faces of that same experience, which brings us knowledge, pain and sometimes happiness, and which humbles but also redeems us.
Bibliography
Baudelaire, C. and Starkie, E. (1942). Les Fleurs du mal : choix de po è mes . Oxford Ellis, B. E. (1998) American Psycho . New York Girouard, M. (1985) Cities & People: A Social and architectural history . New Haven
Kureishi, H. (1990) The Buddha of Suburbia . London Lesne, E. ed. (2017) Paris - Lumières étrangères . Paris Sartre, J.-P. (1938) La Nausée . Paris Selvon, S. (1956) The Lonely Londoners . London
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