The Parisian flâneur is a figure made famous in the last century by the writings of Walter Benjamin, but can also be said to be related to the 19th century English idler as well as to figures in German literature, art and cultural theory. Heinrich Heine’s flâneur first appears with that name in articles written by Heine in Paris in December 1841 that were published in Heine’s Lutezia of 1854. These articles followed the publication in Paris in May 1841 of Louis Huart’s Physiologie du flaneur – a work which has been cited in studies of the Parisian flâneur, but which, like Albert Smith’s even less well known Natural History of the Idler upon Town of 1848 (a work based on a series of Punch articles of 1842 entitled the “Physiology of the London Idler”), has not recently been republished or described in full. To redress this situation, Huart’s Physiologie du flaneur of 1841 and Smith’s Natural History of the Idler upon Town of 1848 are introduced and reproduced here in unabridged form together with the illustrations of John Leech to Smith’s 1842 articles. Smith (like Leech) was a friend of Dickens and Huart’s work provides background information for the work of Heine, Baudelaire, Benjamin, and Hessel amongst other chroniclers of the modern metropolis. In addition to providing contemporary analyses of the 19th century flâneur, the ‘panoramic’ physiologies of Huart and Smith are important examples of 19th century caricature, parody and satire.
Flaneurs & Idlers
Louis Huart: Physiologie du flaneur (1841)
Albert Smith: The Natural History of the Idler upon Town (1848)
Introduced and edited by Margaret A. Rose
AISTHESIS Archiv 8
2020 [als Print-Ausgabe: 2007: ISBN 978-3-89528-640-7]
ISBN 978-3-8498-1616-2
361 Seiten
E-Book (PDF-Datei), 34 MB
Margaret A. Rose completed her doctoral thesis on Heine in 1973 and has published widely on Heine as well as on literary parody and the visual arts of the 19th century (see, for example, her recent Parodie, Intertextualität, Interbildlichkeit, Aisthesis Verlag, Bielefeld 2006). In this new work she provides an introduction to and reproduction of two important examples of the ‘panoramic literature’ of the 19th century in which the figure of the flâneur is ironically represented and caricatured. Her introduction to the ‘physiologies’ of Huart and Smith discusses and presents information on the idlers and/or flâneurs of Samuel Johnson, Honoré de Balzac, Heinrich Heine, Louis Huart, Charles Baudelaire, Charles Dickens, Albert Smith, Walter Benjamin and Franz Hessel as well as the visual arts of their time, while an extensive bibliography lists examples of primary and secondary works on the subject.
Leseprobe: lp-9783895286407.pdf
[...] Der ausführliche und erhellende Einleitungsessay, den Margaret A. Rose ihrer Edition dankenswerter Weise vorangestellt hat, bietet nicht nur eine aufschlussreiche Einführung zu den edierten Schriften, sondern entfaltet darüber hinaus einen breit gefächerten und zugleich prägnanten kulturgeschichtlichen Überblick über die europäischen Flaneurs. Insgesamt stellen die Editionen und der einleitende Kommentar eine Bereicherung der komparatistischen und kulturwissenschaftlichen Forschung sowie des privaten Lesevergnügens dar. Der Fund der beiden Essays oder vielmehr ihre geglückte Wiederentdeckung ist äußerst dankenswert und fruchtbar, indem sie zu einer schweifenden und flanierenden Lektüre einlädt. Zumal die schöne Buchgestaltung und der reich illustrierte Faksimiledruck dazu beitragen, den Lesern anregende und produktive Impulse zu vermitteln.
Annette Simonis in „komparatistik.online“ (2007)
[...] a major scholarly contribution to Comparative Literature.
Michael Hollington in „The Dickensian“ (Spring 2008)
[…] this publication reprints two important mid nineteenth-century texts dealing with the 'flaneur', the idle urban observer. […] The editor's 72-page essay […] offers much more than an introduction to the subject. Margaret Rose discusses and transcends the limitations of Walter Benjamin's canonical critique of the flaneur, such as its fixation on Paris and its ideological bias deriving from late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century theories. [...] Rose's publication contains a superb bibliography of primary an secondary literature [...] – a key to further research into nineteenth-century culture of entertainment and instruction.
Martina Lauster in „Modern Language Review“ (103.4.2008)
Dem Aisthesis Verlag ist zu dieser Veröffentlichung zweier Kerntexte des 19. Jahrhunderts über das Thema des Flaneurs bzw. spazierenden Müßiggängers zu gratulieren [...]. Den Band eröffnet eine äußerst umfangreiche, so kompakte wie informative Untersuchung der Herausgeberin [...]. Roses Band bietet einen wichtigen Baustein in der Erforschung dieser weitgehend unbekannten Zusammenhänge, nicht nur dank des umfassend informierenden Herausgebertextes, sondern auch dank des hervorragenden Verzeichnisses von Primär- und Sekundärliteratur.
Martina Lauster in „Immermann-Jahrbuch 2008“
[...] Meticulously annoted and rich in bibliographic resources, „Flaneurs & Idlers“ adeptly responds to seemingly contradictory needs in the field. [...] Rose offers illuminating perspective on what such satire lays bare: provocative insights on class and the experience of daily life in the nineteenth-century metropolis.
Katherine Gantz in „Nineteenth-Century French Studies“ (37, Nos. 3 & 4, Spring-Summer 2009)
[...] The decision to make these texts available, their subject matter, and the full apparatus Rose has provided make an important contribution to our understanding of the phenomenon of the „flaneur. [...]
David Paroissien in „Dickens Quarterly“ (June 2009, Vol. 26, Nr. 2)
It is perhaps surprising that in the extensive scholarship on the flâneur, the Physiologie du flâneur and more especially the The Natural History of the Idler upon Town have not garnered more attention, particularly given the opportunity they present for working comparatively across national boundaries. Huart’s text has been cited by critics, but often as a prelude to a discussion of Baudelaire or simply to note Walter Benjamin’s neglect of this book and the genre to which it belongs. The 2007 republication of Huart’s and Smith’s texts in facsimile with detailed textual commentary and a critical introduction by Margaret A. Rose should draw further attention to these works and the flâneur prior to Baudelaire’s (and subsequently Benjamin’s) more famous treatment of the figure, as well as flânerie beyond Paris.
Jo Briggs in „The Flâneur Abroad“, Hg. Richard Wrigley, Cambridge Scholars Publishing: Newcastle-upon-Tyne 2014, S. 118
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