flaneurs

One who saunters about, a stroller. Flanerie idling. Flaner to lounge. Chambers 20th Century Dictionary

The keen eyed stroller who chronicles the minutiae of city life

Elkin, 2016

In his book, The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre discusses his ‘unitary theory’ focusing on three fields of space. The Physical, looking at nature; the Cosmos; The Mental, including logical and formal abstractions; and, thirdly, the social. In other words, [we] are concerned with logico-epistemological space, the space of social practice, the space occupied by sensory phenomena, including products of the imagination such as projects and projections, symbols and utopias (Lefebvre, 1991). Lefebvre is the perfect example of the ‘Flaneur’, a human who has moved through space with the aim of being present and parallel to the ‘common person’ (although it must be said, such persons usually have a healthy income, and the time in which to stroll). Yet he has taken one step further. He has observed his world, walked among it, commented, and then deconstructed what we see in it. 52

“There was the pedestrian who wedged himself into the crowd, but there was also the flâneur who demanded elbow room and was unwilling to forego the life of the gentleman of leisure. His leisurely appearance as a personality is his protest against the division of labour which makes people into specialists. it was also his protest against their industriousness. Around 1840 it was briefly fashionable to take turtles for a walk in the arcades. The flâneurs liked to have the turtles set the pace for them.”

“The street becomes a dwelling for the flâneur; he is as much at home among the facades of houses as a citizen is in his four walls. To him the shiny, enamelled signs of businesses are at least as good a wall ornament as an oil painting is to the bourgeois in his salon. The walls are the desk against which he presses his notebooks; news-stands are his libraries and the terraces of cafés are the balconies from which he looks down on his household after his work is done.” (Benjamin, 1977)

Paysage

Je veux, pour composer chastement mes églogues, Coucher auprès du ciel, comme les astrologues, Et, voisin des clochers écouter en rêvant Leurs hymnes solennels emportés par le vent.

Les deux mains au menton, du haut de ma mansarde, Je verrai l’atelier qui chante et qui bavarde ; Les tuyaux, les clochers, ces mâts de la cité, Et les grands ciels qui font rêver d’éternité.

II est doux, à travers les brumes, de voir naître L’étoile dans l’azur, la lampe à la fenêtre Les fleuves de charbon monter au firmament Et la lune verser son pâle enchantement.

Je verrai les printemps, les étés, les automnes ; Et quand viendra l’hiver aux neiges monotones, Je fermerai partout portières et volets Pour bâtir dans la nuit mes féeriques palais. Alors je rêverai des horizons bleuâtres, Des jardins, des jets d’eau pleurant dans les albâtres, Des baisers, des oiseaux chantant soir et matin, Et tout ce que l’Idylle a de plus enfantin. L’Emeute, tempêtant vainement à ma vitre, Ne fera pas lever mon front de mon pupitre ; Car je serai plongé dans cette volupté D’évoquer le Printemps avec ma volonté, De tirer un soleil de mon coeur, et de faire De mes pensers brûlants une tiède atmosphère.

– Charles Baudelaire Landscape

More chasteness to my eclogues it would give, Sky-high, like old astrologers to live, A neighbour of the belfries : and to hear Their solemn hymns along the winds career. High in my attic, chin in hand, I’d swing And watch the workshops as they roar and sing, The city’s masts – each steeple, tower, and flue – And skies that bring eternity to view.

Sweet, through the mist, to see illumed again Stars through the azure, lamps behind the pane, Rivers of carbon irrigate the sky, And the pale moon pour magic from on high. I’d watch three seasons passing by, and then When winter came with dreary snows, I’d pen Myself between closed shutters, bolts, and doors, And build my fairy palaces indoors.

A dream of blue horizons I would garble With thoughts of fountains weeping on to marble, Of gardens, kisses, birds that ceaseless sing, And all the Idyll holds of childhood’s spring. The riots, brawling past my window-pane, From off my desk would not divert my brain. Because I would be plunged in pleasure still, Conjuring up the Springtime with my will, And forcing sunshine from my heart to form, Of burning thoughts, an atmosphere that’s warm.

– Roy Campbell (Translation) 1952

The Sun

Along the outskirts where, close-sheltering Hid lusts, dilapidated shutters swing, When the sun strikes, redoubling waves of heat On town, and field, and roof, and dusty street – I prowl to air my prowess and kill time, Stalking, in likely nooks, the odds of rhyme, Tripping on words like cobbles as I go

And bumping into lines dreamed long ago. This all-providing Sire, foe to chloroses,

Wakes verses in the fields as well as roses Evaporates one’s cares into the breeze, Filling with honey brains and hives of bees, Rejuvenating those who go on crutches And bringing youthful joy to all he touches, Life to those precious harvests he imparts That grow and ripen in our deathless hearts. Poet-like, through the town he seems to smile Ennobling fate for all that is most vile ; And king-like, without servants or display, Through hospitals and mansions makes his way.

– Roy Campbell, 1952 Le Soleil

Le long du vieux faubourg, où pendent aux masures Les persiennes, abri des sécrètes luxures, Quand le soleil cruel frappe à traits redoublés Sur la ville et les champs, sur les toits et les blés,

Je vais m’exercer seul à ma fantasque escrime, Flairant dans tous les coins les hasards de la rime, Trébuchant sur les mots comme sur les pavés Heurtant parfois des vers depuis longtemps rêvés.

Ce père nourricier, ennemi des chloroses, Eveille dans les champs les vers comme les roses ; II fait s’évaporer les soucis vers le ciel, Et remplit les cerveaux et les ruches le miel. C’est lui qui rajeunit les porteurs de béquilles Et les rend gais et doux comme des jeunes filles, Et commande aux moissons de croître et de mûrir Dans le coeur immortel qui toujours veut fleurir ! Quand, ainsi qu’un poète, il descend dans les villes, II ennoblit le sort des choses les plus viles, Et s’introduit en roi, sans bruit et sans valets, Dans tous les hôpitaux et dans tous les palais.

– Charles Baudelaire

Le Cygne

À Victor Hugo

Andromaque, je pense à vous ! Ce petit fleuve, Pauvre et triste miroir où jadis resplendit L’immense majesté de vos douleurs de veuve, Ce Simoïs menteur qui par vos pleurs grandit, A fécondé soudain ma mémoire fertile, Comme je traversais le nouveau Carrousel.

Le vieux Paris n’est plus (la forme d’une ville Change plus vite, hélas ! que le coeur d’un mortel) ; Je ne vois qu’en esprit tout ce camp de baraques, Ces tas de chapiteaux ébauchés et de fûts, Les herbes, les gros blocs verdis par l’eau des flaques, Et, brillant aux carreaux, le bric-à-brac confus. Là s’étalait jadis une ménagerie ; Là je vis, un matin, à l’heure où sous les cieux Froids et clairs le Travail s’éveille, où la voirie Pousse un sombre ouragan dans l’air silencieux, Un cygne qui s’était évadé de sa cage, Et, de ses pieds palmés frottant le pavé sec, Sur le sol raboteux traînait son blanc plumage. Près d’un ruisseau sans eau la bête ouvrant le bec Baignait nerveusement ses ailes dans la poudre, Et disait, le coeur plein de son beau lac natal : « Eau, quand donc pleuvras-tu ? quand tonnerastu, foudre ? » Je vois ce malheureux, mythe étrange et fatal, Vers le ciel quelquefois, comme l’homme d’Ovide,

Vers le ciel ironique et cruellement bleu, Sur son cou convulsif tendant sa tête avide Comme s’il adressait des reproches à Dieu ! Paris change ! mais rien dans ma mélancolie N’a bougé ! palais neufs, échafaudages, blocs, Vieux faubourgs, tout pour moi devient allégorie Et mes chers souvenirs sont plus lourds que des rocs.

Aussi devant ce Louvre une image m’opprime : Je pense à mon grand cygne, avec ses gestes fous, Comme les exilés, ridicule et sublime Et rongé d’un désir sans trêve ! et puis à vous, Andromaque, des bras d’un grand époux tombée, Vil bétail, sous la main du superbe Pyrrhus, Auprès d’un tombeau vide en extase courbée Veuve d’Hector, hélas ! et femme d’Hélénus !

Je pense à la négresse, amaigrie et phtisique Piétinant dans la boue, et cherchant, l’oeil hagard, Les cocotiers absents de la superbe Afrique Derrière la muraille immense du brouillard ;

À quiconque a perdu ce qui ne se retrouve Jamais, jamais ! à ceux qui s’abreuvent de pleurs Et tètent la Douleur comme une bonne louve ! Aux maigres orphelins séchant comme des fleurs ! Ainsi dans la forêt où mon esprit s’exile Un vieux Souvenir sonne à plein souffle du cor ! Je pense aux matelots oubliés dans une île, Aux captifs, aux vaincus !... à bien d’autres encor ! – Charles Baudelaire

The Swan

To Victor Hugo

Andromache, I think of you ! – That little stream, That mirror, poor and sad, which glittered long ago

With the vast majesty of your widow’s grieving,

That false Simois swollen by your tears,

Suddenly made fruitful my teeming memory, As I walked across the new Carrousel. – Old Paris is no more (the form of a city Changes more quickly, alas ! than the human heart) ;

I see only in memory that camp of stalls, Those piles of shafts, of rough hewn cornices, the grass, The huge stone blocks stained green in puddles of water, And in the windows shine the jumbled bric-a-brac.

Once a menagerie was set up there ; There, one morning, at the hour when Labor awakens, Beneath the clear, cold sky when the dismal hubbub Of street-cleaners and scavengers breaks the silence,

I saw a swan that had escaped from his cage, That stroked the dry pavement with his webbed feet And dragged his white plumage over the uneven ground. Beside a dry gutter the bird opened his beak,

Restlessly bathed his wings in the dust And cried, homesick for his fair native lake : “Rain, when will you fall ? Thunder, when will you roll ?” I see that hapless bird, that strange and fatal myth,

Toward the sky at times, like the man in Ovid, Toward the ironic, cruelly blue sky, Stretch his avid head upon his quivering neck, As if he were reproaching God ! Paris changes ! but naught in my melancholy Has stirred ! New palaces, scaffolding, blocks of stone, Old quarters, all become for me an allegory, And my dear memories are heavier than rocks.

So, before the Louvre, an image oppresses me : I think of my great swan with his crazy motions, Ridiculous, sublime, like a man in exile, Relentlessly gnawed by longing ! and then of you, Andromache, base chattel, fallen from the embrace Of a mighty husband into the hands of proud Pyrrhus, Standing bowed in rapture before an empty tomb, Widow of Hector, alas ! and wife of Helenus !

I think of the negress, wasted and consumptive, Trudging through muddy streets, seeking with a fixed gaze The absent coco-palms of splendid Africa Behind the immense wall of mist ;

Of whoever has lost that which is never found Again ! Never ! Of those who deeply drink of tears And suckle Pain as they would suck the good shewolf ! Of the puny orphans withering like flowers ! Thus in the dim forest to which my soul withdraws, An ancient memory sounds loud the hunting horn ! I think of the sailors forgotten on some isle, – Of the captives, of the vanquished !... of many others too !

– William Aggeler, 1954

(Baudelaire, C. 1866)