Flaneurs & Idlers

Louis Huart: Physiologie du flaneur (1841) - Albert Smith: The Natural History of the Idler upon Town (1848)
1. Auflage 2007
ISBN: 978-3-89528-640-7
Verlag: Aisthesis Verlag, Bielefeld

Buch, Englisch, Französisch, Band 8, 362 Seiten, PB, Format (B × H): 145 mm x 205 mm, Gewicht: 450 g

Reihe: Aisthesis Archiv

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.

Zielgruppe

Kulturwissenschaften (Literatur, Mode, Zeitgeist)

Autoren/Hrsg.

Huart, Louis

Smith, Albert

Rose, Margaret A.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Rose, Margaret A

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder England, UK, Irland: Regional & Stadtgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Umweltgeschichte & Umweltarchäologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

I. Margaret A. Rose: Flaneurs & Idlers: a ‘panoramic’ overview
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Louis Huart’s Physiologie du flaneur of 1841
- 3. Heinrich Heine’s Parisian flâneur
- 4. Charles Baudelaire’s flâneurs
- 5. Walter Benjamin and the Parisian flâneur
- 6. The London idlers of Albert Smith
- 7. The Berlin flâneur: from Heine to Benjamin and Hessel
- 8. The flâneur in the visual arts
- 9. The flâneur and the panorama
- 10. Conclusion

- II. Louis Huart: Physiologie du flaneur (1841), ill. Alophe, Daumier & Maurisset

- III. Albert Smith: The Natural History of the Idler upon Town (1848), ill. Henning

- IV. Appendix 1. John Leech’s “Parisian Swell” of 1838 & Extract from the last of Albert Smith’s (Knips’) “Sketches of Paris” of 1839

- V. Appendix 2. A. Henning’s “The Man about Town” of 1842

- VI. Appendix 3. Further sketches by John Leech to Albert Smith’s “Physiology of the London Idler” of 1842

- VII. Bibliography

Über Autor(innen)

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.

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.