Delacroix, Wagner, Baudelaire - all great theorists, bent on dominating other minds by sensuous means. Their one dream was to create the irresistible effect - to intoxicate, or overwhelm. They looked to analysis to provide them with the keyboard on which to play, with certainty, on man's emotions, and they sought in abstract meditation they key to sure and certain action upon their subject - man's nervous and psychic being.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Baudelaire sees love as a means to commit evil and to combat loneliness through shared horror.
- In plain terms
- He finds pleasure in love by doing bad and spreading dread.
- What can you take from it?
- Recognize the dark motives that can underlie affection.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What does it mean to love through evil?
- Can shared horror truly alleviate loneliness?
Another view
Equating love with evil can justify harmful behavior.
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Baudelaire, to whom the sole pleasure in love was the knowledge of doing evil and who hoped to conquer solitude by inspiring universal horror and disgust.
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