Honors Thesis

Flaneur

"Le flâneur parisien est aussi souvent un homme au désespoir qu'un oisif."
- Honoré de Balzac, dans César Birotteau (1838)

Definition
of flaneur: an idle man about town 

In Wilde, Balzac and Hofmannsthal, the main characters embody the flaneur. In fact, most of their adventures and encounters with the uncanny happen as they are about the town, walking around observing, etc. This is especially true to their death scene which is intrinsically linked to a moment typical to the flaneur: the experience of the street followed by a lonely, isolated death. 
 

Contents of this annotation:

  1. Bourg. Int.