Chapter 8, Urban Myth Summary and Analysis

Baudelaire is one of the most quoted figures in the entire book. In this chapter, he writes that the urban life has developed a greater existence. It has the fantasy existence that interpenetrates the facts and the truth. Part of modernity he asserts, is that city life is partially transformed. Myths are created that go along with it. The real and the imaginary float along together. Similarly, the known and the unknown travel as a unit. Literary figures serenely ask readers what they know and what they are discovering here for the very first time. Jugendstil, Baudelaire, Nietzsche - all these are amongst those described as characterizing the 19th century intellectual climate of Europe.

Another of this era's great thinkers was Fourier. Hi main theoretical contribution was the idea of the human as a "passionate machine". He...