Baudelaire and Maistre: the Weight of Original Sin

By 1851, the poet Charles Baudelaire had become obsessed — in contrast to his previous anarchist position — with the views of the reactionary and fiercely Catholic Joseph de Maistre. Maistre argued that Original Sin “explains everything,” a perspective that Baudelaire was to adopt, and which markedly changed his poetry. This lecture will consider Baudelaire’s preoccupation with sin in light of Kierkegaard’s treatment of anxiety and sin in The Concept of Anxiety.