British satirical poems and cartoons about Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte: Deconstructing authenticity and aura

Martens, Britta

Abstract

This article draws on opposing cultural concepts of authenticity and imitation, combined with Walter Benjamin’s notion of the aura, to examine the self-promotion of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte as successor of Napoleon I. The article confronts Louis-Napoleon’s strategy of self-promotion with the criticism it attracted in British satirical cartoons and poems. Louis-Napoleon constructs a public image laying claim to the aura of his uncle as Romantic hero; conversely, his critics exploit the same imagery to ridicule him as an inferior imitator. They reject both the idea that aura is transferable and the concept of authenticity based on external authority (via dynastic lineage) in favour of one located in the original, unique self. The article explores the paradox that, while attacking Louis-Napoleon for his inauthenticity, caricatures and parodies are themselves reliant on imitation. It contends that this paradox arises from the genres’ transitional position between historically and culturally divergent ways of perceiving the original and the copy.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 9, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Jan 20, 2021
• Publication Date: 2021
• Deposit Date: Jan 8, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 21, 2022
• Journal: Nineteenth-Century Contexts
• Print ISSN: 0890-5495
• Electronic ISSN: 1477-2663
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 43
• Issue: 1
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/08905495.2021.1863109
• Keywords: aura; authenticity; caricature; imitation; originality; parody; satire.
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/5035275
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/gncc20/current