Relate comic things in pompous fashion. Irregularity, in other words the unexpected, the surprising, the astonishing, are essential to and characteristic of beauty.

Two fundamental literary qualities: super-naturalism and irony. The blend of the grotesque and the tragic are attractive to the mind, as is discord to blasé ears.

Imagine a canvas for a lyrical, magical farce, for a pantomime, and translate it into a serious novel. Drown the whole thing in an abnormal, dreamy atmosphere, in the atmosphere of great days …

The region of pure poetry.”

~ Charles Baudelaire