Brief Description
This study of Baudelaire's writings applies the principles of socioanalysis to literary history and cultural studies.
Learn More about the Book
This is the first book to apply the principles of schizoanalysis to literary history and cultural studies. By resituating psychoanalysis in its socio-economic and cultural context, this framework provides a new and illuminating approach to Baudelaire's poetry and art criticism. Professor Holland demonstrates the impact of military authoritarianism and the capitalist market (as well as Baudelaire's much-discussed family circumstances) on the psychology and poetics of the writer, who abandoned his romantic idealism in favor of a modernist cynicism that has characterized modern culture ever since.
Review Quotes
1. "Holland's study of Baudelaire has achieved the aim of providing a total reading of Baudelaire's works, integrating interpretations of his poems, prose-poems, art criticism, letters and journals." Timothy Raser, Nineteenth-century French Studies
2. "This is a splendid example of passionate theorizing which harnesses the insights of schizoanalysis to literary criticism with the reins of linguistics and postmodernist theory." Graham Robb, Times Literary Supplement
3. "The account of the poems is impressive, and the analysis of the art writing is boldly original....Very good at presenting his own views, Holland doesn't get distracted by digressive debates with other commentators. One gets the impression that he has really worked through his analysis....This superb book is full of critical energy. Holland reads brilliantly, he has a great ear for details; and his writing is almost always lucid....This book, one of the best works of literary criticism I have read in many years, inspires argument, as do very few such texts." David Carrier, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism
