“I know the passionate lover
of fine style exposes himself
to the hatred of the masses;
but no respect for humanity,
no false modesty, no conspiracy,
no universal suffrage will ever
force me to speak the unspeakable
jargon of this age, or to confuse
ink with virtue… but this morning
I was so rash as to read some of
the public newspapers; suddenly an
indolence of the weight of twenty
atmospheres fell upon me, and I was
stopped, faced by the appalling use-
lessness of explaining anything what-
ever to anyone whatever.”
Charles Baudelaire,
draft preface (unpublished)
second edition, Les Fleurs du Mal
(Flowers of Evil), 1861.¹
US history, an art museum was put on trial for obscenity. This article takes an unpleasant trip down memory lane, and argues that we are possibly facing a worse cultural crisis today than we were then.
by Daryl Champion
by Eugène Satyrisci
strates how a fiction writer can use language to produce other forms of writing as elegant and descriptive as fiction.
by Anne Tourney
