Baudelaire’s Paris Looking at Africa, and Vice Versa

This article tests the textual differences between those of Baudelaire's poems that are typically considered 'Parisian' or 'foreign'. It argues that 'La Belle Dorothée' is not only a poem about an African gaze on France, or indeed only a poem set in Africa, but that it can also be shown to represent an allegory for a Parisian view of self. The more overtly Parisian 'À une passante', for its part, glances at more than a poet struck down in Paris by the shock of Modernity; it also gazes inter alia on African beauty, Sara Baartman, aka the Hottentot Venus.