Parisian flânerie: Baudelaire, Benjamin, and Cortázar

The aim of this thesis is to trace the idea of the flneur, developed in Nineteenth-century Paris. The following chapters examine the inception of this idea with French poet Charles Baudelaire in the mid-nineteenth century, its implementation in the writings of German essayist and literary critic Walter Benjamin, and finally its manifestation in the writings of Argentine expatriate Julio Cortzar. With special attention to Cortzars work, Rayuela and its use of flnerie in both characters and form. The analyses examine the use of flnerie in the works of Baudelaire, Benjamin, and Cortzar and how these have evolved from the nineteenth to the twentieth century.