La Folie Baudelaire

In La Folie Baudelaire Roberto Calasso describes the life, work, and world of symbolist poet Charles Baudelaire in terms of an image borrowed from nineteenth century French critic Charles Saint-Beuve: the “highly decorated, highly tormented but graceful” architectural extravagance known as a garden folly. Saint-Beuve used the image to disparage Baudelaire’s work.  In Calasso’s hands…

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William Howard Russell, Special Correspondent to the Times

William Howard Russell, “Special Correspondent for the Times”, was the original war correspondent. His unexpected career began in the Crimean War. As Russell later wrote, “When the year of grace 1854 opened on me, I had no more idea of being what is now–absurdly, I think, called a ‘War Correspondent’ than I had of being…

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