Baudelaire’s theoretical and poetic work deals repeatedly with the question of representation, either critizing the "brickmason’s" realism, or a certain kind of sugary romanticism. In Paris Spleen: Little Prose Poems, this discussion assumes an ethical configuration, when, in "The Bad Glazier", the poet rebels against the mechanism of reproduction itself, both from the artistical point of view and from the social point of view. Comparing this text with the one written by his friend and publisher Arsène Houssaye, who had published his poem in prose "The glazier’s song" about a similar theme, we may notice that two conceptions of mimesis are conveyed, each one revealing a very different perspective on poetics and life.
Baudelaire; "The Bad Glazier"; poetics; mimesis