In this essay, de Man takes on Baudelaire and the stakes of "lyric reading." It's tough going, so far as essays go, but you're a Boot Camp survivor. So you'll be prepared.
And we promise you'll be a better theorist for all of your hard work. Just do us one more solid. Let us know what you think about these questions:
- Why does de Man get so worked up about that last "comme" (like/as) in Baudelaire's sonnet "Correspondances"?
- What do you think de Man means by "true mourning"?