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Baudelaire and Maistre: the Weight of Original Sin

May 22, 2014
Social Sciences, Room 122
1126 E 59th St.
Chicago, IL 60637
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By 1851, the poet Charles Baudelaire had become obsessed — in contrast to his previous anarchist position — with the views of the reactionary and fiercely Catholic Joseph de Maistre. Maistre argued that Original Sin “explains everything,” a perspective that Baudelaire was to adopt, and which markedly changed his poetry. This lecture will consider Baudelaire’s preoccupation with sin in light of Kierkegaard’s treatment of anxiety and sin in The Concept of Anxiety.