ABSTRACT
This chapter initially uses autobiographical anecdote to introduce the theme of Baudelaire’s theorisation of modernism as a cultural paradigm, as compared with the cultural paradigm of postmodernism. The chapter goes on to explore in more detail a small, edited excerpt from Baudelaire’s 1846 salon essay, thus arriving at an understanding of the way in which Baudelaire’s approach to modernism was grounded in his response to, and advocation of, the uses of history.
