Walter Benjamin discusses the changing Parisian society and how it became increasingly alienated by their exposure to commodities and capitalism in Paris, the capital of the 19th century. The essayist has produced its two different versions with the same title.
Read: what is Fourier or Arcades?
The first version of Paris, the capital of the 19th century was published in 1935. The second version essay got published after reworking over the earlier one. Most of the things are similar in both versions. However, there is a little different in its forms. In the first version, he has not incorporated the introduction and the conclusion section whereas the second version of 1939 has both sections.
In the second version of Paris, the capital of the 19th century, we can notice the deletion of Daguerre and panoramas because Baudelaire had already written a famous essay on mechanical production. So, he deliberately avoided this section in the later versions. The conclusion functions as the bridge between the representation of 1939 and the Second Empire.
In the 19th century, France saw various changes because of urbanization, modernization, industrialization, and innovation of science and technology. Paris was the most fashionable, crowded and biggest city in entire Europe. Paris was considered to be the capital city of Europe. The major four different changes taken place in Parisian society led it to be the capital city of the 19th century.
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- Fourier or Arcades
- Louis Philip or the Interior
- Baudelaire, or the streets of Paris
- Haussmann or the Barricades
