Marching towards Destruction: the Crowd in Urban Gothic

The impact of the city on Man’s mind has often been fascinating for some writers. Starting from Walter Benjamin’s analysis on Charles Baudelaire’s poetry (329-390), one will first see the antagonistic features characterising the city and its inhabitants, more particularly those prone to stroll the streets. Although different in both its contents and its “inscape”, we will briefly consider some of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poetry. Indeed the English poet also stresses the dual aspect of Man’s ex...