Journalistic Intermediation: The Newspaper Poetics of Nerval and Baudelaire

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article analyses interconnections between the newspaper press and the creative processes of Gérard de Nerval and Charles Baudelaire. From Nerval's dizzying challenge to press restrictions in Les Faux Saulniers (1850), to Baudelaire's harnessing of the cacophony of La Presse in his placement of the petits poèmes en prose, the press environment becomes a unique site of experimentation in prose. Focusing on their exploitation of the feuilleton as a means of contending with press restrictions, I demonstrate that these poets' engagement with newspapers is inseparable from their aesthetic achievements.