Painting Modern Life: A History of the Flaneur from Baudelaire to Bob Dylan by Julia Mitchell Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia December 2008 © Copyright by Julia Mitchell, 2008 Library and Bibliotheque et 1*1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-50096-5 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-50096-5 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non­ L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par Plntemet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non­ sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. Canada DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY To comply with the Canadian Privacy Act the National Library of Canada has requested that the following pages be removed from this copy of the thesis: Preliminary Pages Examiners Signature Page (pii) Dalhousie Library Copyright Agreement (piii) Appendices Copyright Releases (if applicable) Table of Contents Abstract vi Acknowledgements vii Chapter One - Introduction 1 The Evolution of Flanerie: From Baudelaire to Dylan 1 Modernism and Postmodernism 6 Historiography 10 Problems and Methodology 15 Chapter Two - The Flaneur and his City: Charles Baudelaire and the Art of Flanerie in Nineteenth-Century Paris 18 Introduction 18 Paris: Capital of the Nineteenth Century 19 A Tale of Two Flaneurs 22 The Arcades and Walter Benjamin 29 Baudelaire 33 The Flaneur as Symbol of Modern Subjectivity 35 Conclusion 48 Chapter Three - The Flaneur in the Age of Technological Reproducibility: Mass Culture in Weimar Germany, 1918-1933 50 Introduction 50 Berlin 51 The Development of Mass Culture: The Ur-History of the Arcades Project 54 Flanerie on Film: Photo-Journalism and the Cinema 56 iv Conclusion 72 Chapter Four - "Gates of Eden": Bob Dylan and the Art of Flanerie in the American Sixties 75 Introduction 75 Bob Dylan: Flaneur for a New (Left) Age 77 Songs as Denkbilder. Education Through Experience 78 New York 80 Time Awareness and The Art of Protest 82 Dont Look Back: The Cult of Celebrity, Spectacle, and the Crowd 89 The Artist as Commodity and the Unreal Reality of the American Sixties 91 Masks and Incognitos 105 John Wesley Harding and the American Voice 108 Conclusion 112 Chapter Five - Conclusion 113 Bibliography 118 v Abstract The flaneur, the spectator of modern life, has been relatively undervalued as a historical figure. Where the flaneur has been studied, there has been an unwavering emphasis on his role in the emergence of modern, urban culture in nineteenth-century Paris. In the twentieth century, the changing nature of modern society and a variety of technological developments both necessitated and encouraged new forms of flanerie, away from a physical presence on the city streets. The mass mediated culture of the twentieth century facilitated the flaneur's move beyond the limits of the city, broadening his frame of reference, and allowing for the fusion of Charles Baudelaire's painter and Walter Benjamin' commodified flaneur through new art forms - above all photography, film, and the record. Bob Dylan, in the 1960s, demonstrated the possibility of the flaneur's survival through his work, which elucidated the problems of individualism, identity and freedom in post-war American society. vi Acknowledgments There are many people to whom I have become greatly indebted in completing this project. Firstly, I would like to thank my family: my parents, for reading drafts and dealing with my panicked phone calls, and for reassuring me when I most needed it; Colin, Jill, Max and Thomas, for helping to make Halifax home, and for providing me with food, shelter and distraction. I want to thank my supervisor, Dr. John Bingham, for encouraging an unorthodox project, supporting me through several drafts as it took shape, and for asking me the tough questions. His time and effort are greatly appreciated, and this project could not have been completed without him. Thank you to the faculty and staff of the Dalhousie history department: Valerie Peck and Tina Jones, who were always delightfully helpful, and whose patience with my incessant queries will always be deeply appreciated; Dr. Todd McCallum, for taking an interest in this thesis, for lending me many useful books and some great advice; Drs. Claire Campbell and Chris Elson for agreeing to sit on my defence committee, and for providing insightful commentary and criticisms in the final end. Lastly, I need to acknowledge my peers who, over the past 16 months, have been incredibly supportive and helpful, providing me equally with encouragement, amusement and reality checks as needed. Thanks Amanda, Brandon, Matt and Saman for being the grooviest of office mates, and dealing with my neuroses on a daily basis; and Laura Hynes, who not only read early drafts of this thesis, but also tolerates me on the squash court. I hope that I have been able to provide something in return to all of you. vii Chapter One Introduction Every honest man is a prophet, [for] he utters his opinion on private and public matters.1 -- William Blake The flaneur is a precursor of a particular form of inquiry that seeks to read the history of culture from its public spaces.2 — Anke Gleber, The Art of Taking a Walk The Evolution of Flanerie: From Baudelaire to Dylan As the archetypal observer of modern life, the flaneur has been remarkably undervalued as an historical figure. The etymology of the term reveals "flaneur" to be a French word of Germanic origin, meaning primarily to idle about or stroll. This definition should hardly inspire any further study of flanerie, nor does it bare the true scope of the flaneur's cultural participation.3 What the flaneur has contributed to Western culture, and what he might still contribute, has indeed been obscured by the common definition of the word. The flaneur can be alternatively identified as the embodiment of the individual William Blake, quoted in Mike Marqusee, Wicked Messenger: Bob Dylan and the 1960s (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2005), 7. 2 Anke Gleber, The Art of Taking a Walk: Flanerie, Literature, and Film in Weimar Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 4. 3 The history of the term's use in English, from the OED, reveals a lot about its development and the adaptability of the figure: A lounger or saunterer, an idle 'man about town.' Also transf. Hence flane, flane, flane v. intr., to saunter, to laze; 1854 Harper's Mag. Aug. 411/2, 'Did you ever fail to waste at least two hours of every sunshiny day, in the long-ago time when you played the flaneur, in the metropolitan city, with looking at shop-windows?'; 1872 E. Braddon, Life in India vi. 236, 'He will affect a knowledge of London life that only comes to the regular flaneur after years of active experience'; 1896 G.B Shaw, Our Theatres in Nineties (1932) II. 217, 'The boundary which separates the clever flaneur from the dramatist'; 1938 H.G. Wells, Apropos of Dolores i. 13, 'In Paris, in London I have been a happy flaneur, I have flane-d in New York and Washington and most of the great cities of Europe'; 1969 Computers & Humanities IV. 29, 'The electronic age may yet see every man a flaneur.' 1 subject as he responds to the social and cultural conditions presented by modernity and then postmodernity. In times of great cultural change, the flaneur emerges as one who can facilitate an understanding of socio-cultural developments, and ultimately translate what he sees into art. Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century in France, the flaneur existed as a popular cultural archetype, a distinctly bourgeois figure who produced romanticized visions of the cityscape. However, by the 1860s, the poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire redefined the flaneur as the prototypical modern artist - the painter of modern life - and thus solidified the figure's importance not only as an artist, but as a personification of the problems facing modern subjectivity. Broadened this way, the idea of 'painting' modern life applies across a variety of temporal and geographical spaces. The concept of flanerie emerged in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, inextricably linked with the emergence of the Parisian arcades, the first glass- roofed malls.