Mystic Fusion: Baudelaire and le sentiment du beau Author(s): Catherine B. Osborn Source: PMLA, Vol. 88, No. 5 (Oct.

, 1973), pp. 1127-1136 Published by: Modern Language Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/461645 . Accessed: 08/07/2013 11:58
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CATHERINE B. OSBORN

Mystic Fusion: Baudelaireand le sentimentdu beau

BAUDELAIRE'S magnificent poetry has aroused constant speculation on his esthetic theory. Critics have felt that an understanding of his esthetics would give a clearer understanding of his poetic technique; this in turn would lead to a more complete appreciation of the beauty of his poetry. He has also left sufficient remarks, if unsystematized and indeed often contradictory, to pique the curiosity of the critic and to suggest various interpretations of his philosophy. His poetry, a consistent interpretation of his theoretical explanations, and the literary climate in which he lived all lead me to believe that his esthetic doctrine is built upon le sentiment du beau. His "definition du Beau," his "theorie rationnelle et historique du beau," his "Beau bizzare" all need le sentiment du beau to resolve their contradictions and their ambiguities. More important, this esthetic doctrine is applicable to all of his poetry: it permits a finer appreciation of both the Christian and the Satanic poems and also of the poems that are neither. It maintains the essential esthetic value absent in the many psychological interpretations. It affords more insight into his poetry than a doctrine of metaphor; it permits a more complete interpretation than the theory that his art is based on a fusion of the spiritual and the material. And there is evidence that Baudelaire's theory of the esthetic feeling not only was a logical development of early nineteenth-century esthetics but was under open discussion among the younger poets of the middle of the century. For Baudelaire did know to his satisfaction what this sentiment du beau is: he understood it to be a perfect fusion of the three modes of the human personality-sensation, feeling, and thought. "II me serait trop facile de disserter subtilement sur la composition symetrique ou equilibree, sur la ponderation des tons, sur le ton chaud et le ton froid, etc. 0 vanite! Je prefere parler au nom du sentiment, de la morale et du plaisir.''1

CHARLES

His analysis is therefore both specific and penetrating. In 1895, George Santayana defined the sense of beauty as "pleasure objectified"; he went on to say that man feels this pleasure when harmony has been established between his nature and his experience.2Forty years earlier Baudelaire saw that the harmony was purely subjective-a psychological phenomenon-and he continued to study the way in which it was established. The poet, in order to practice applied esthetics, cannot remain in the abstract universe of the philosopher. Baudelairewas interested in esthetic theory, not for itself, but because it made his technique surer and brought him closer to the realization of his dream. For him poetic function was the creation of beauty, and the creation of beauty meant the awakening of le sentiment du beau in his reader. "La peinture est une evocation, une operation magique" (p. 692). He had three ways of studying this esthetic feeling: he could observe his own reactions, he could explore the opinions of contemporary theoreticians, and he could analyze the work of his fellow poets. He did all three. "La joie est une" (p. 719). This is the basic observation. We call beautiful that object which sends a cleansing emotion coursing through us, healing if ever so briefly the fragmented state that is the plight, if not the naturalcondition, of modern man. This temporary state of bliss is the etat paradisiaque that Baudelaire has studied in his essay on "Les Paradis artificiels" (p. 433), those fraudulent states of bliss procured by the use of alcohol or hashish. The intensification of the drug experience permitted him to feel that he understood more clearly what goes on in the mind: sensation is augmented beyond the accepted bounds of reality engendering feelings of delight and amazement that are accompanied by thoughts transcending time and space. The three modes of the human personality-sensation, emotion, and thought-are welded into a single outpouring of

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Baudelaire and le sentimentdu beau

s'enfonce comme un abime plus infini, ou les sons tintent musicalement, ou les couleursparlent,ouiles parfumsracontentdes mondes d'idees? Eh bien, la peinturede Delacroix me parait la traductionde ces beauxjours de l'esprit.Elle est revetued'intensite,et sa splendeurest privilegiee.Comme la nature pergue elle rdvelele surnaturalpar des nerfs ultrasensibles, isme. (p. 709) Baudelaire never does say anywhere that le sentimentdu beau is this fusion of the three modes of the human mind. But there are countless sentences whose meaning is based on this idea. Here is a short quotation from his essay on Gautier: "D'un autre cote, il a introduit dans la poesie un element nouveau, que j'appellerai la consolation par les arts.
. .

psychic energy which spends itself in transcendency.3 "Toute contradiction est devenue unite. L'homme est passe dieu" (p. 428). Not enough importance has been attached to Baudelaire's use of drugs although he himself was very open about their attractions as well as their horrible toll. His frequent comparisons of the hashish dream to the poet's vision and of the artistic effect to the drug experience are proof that he did believe the ultimate goal of art was to duplicate this condition of "veritable grace." He concludes his essay, "Du vin et du haschisch," by quoting a friend who says, "Je ne comprends pas pourquoi l'homme rationnel et spirituel se sert de moyens artificiels pour arriver a la beatitude poetique, puisque l'enthousiasme et la volonte suffisent pour l'elever a une existence supranaturelle. Les grands poetes, les philosophes, les prophetes sont des etres qui, par le pur et libre exercice de la volonte, parviennent a un etat ou ils sont a la fois cause et effet, sujet et objet, magnetiseur et somnambule." And then he ends, "Je pense exactement comme lui" (p. 431). It is therefore difficult to exaggerate the role that drugs played in the development of Baudelaire's esthetics: the drug experience helped him to clarify for himself the goal of art and it gave him a laboratory in which he could study various ways of achieving his goal. From the tragic irony of drug addiction itself to the spectacular interplay of sensations to the peaceful identification with God, Baudelaire found rich lessons in his use of drugs. However, the drug experience must be kept in the proper perspective. None of these lessons introduced to him new ideas: all the aspects of the drug experience were familiar to nineteenth-century poets, but they were familiar as theory coming from Swedenborg, Hoffman, and other mystics and illuminists. The hashish turned theory into experience, arousing thus the emotion that was to complete the psychological fusion. And Weeded it was the hashish that put this phenomenon within call and made it available for observation and for study. The following passage from the "Salon de 1855" sums up his observations and shows how easily he can apply his analysis to art-here to the painting of Delacroix: Sans avoir recours a l'opium, qui n'a connu ces admirablesheures,vdritables fetes du cerveau,ou les sens plus attentifspergoiventdes sensationsplus retentissantes, ou le ciel d'un azur plus transparent

. Dans ce sens il a vraiment

innove; il a fait dire au vers frangais plus qu'il n'avait dit jusqu'a present.... La surtout apparait tout le resultat qu'on peut obtenir par la fusion du double element, peinture et musique, par la carrure de la melodie, et par la pourpre reguliere et symetrique d'une rime plus qu'exacte" (p. 1043). This is an incomplete statement and I'm sure it has usually been understood as an ordinary appreciation of a perfectly normal poetic blending of rhythm and image. However, the "element nouveau," the "consolation par les arts" lead me to suggest that he tried unsuccessfully here to explain his understanding of the beautiful. Of course, the great omission is any mention of the transcendent, the surnaturel, the infini.For Baudelairethere can be no beauty unless the mind of man is joggled out of the finite to reach into the infinite as far as his capabilities
permit: ". . . nous, poetes et philosophes, nous

avons regenere notre ame par le travail successif et la contemplation; par l'exercice assidu de la volonte et la noblesse permanente de lintention, nous avons cre6 a notre usage un jardin de vraie beaute. Confiants dans la parole qui dit que la foi transporte les montagnes, nous avons accompli le seul miracle dont Dieu nous ait octroye la licence!" (p. 477). Many other quotations can be found which show that Baudelaire felt le sentiment du beau to be a healing process for the human personality. As Lloyd-James Austin says in L'Universpoetique de Baudelaire, "l'unitE vers laquelle la poesie de Baudelaire nous ramene n'est ni l'unite divine, ni l'unite satanique, mais l'unite de l'ame humaine."4

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Catherine B. Osborn
This was not a new interpretation of the esthetic feeling in Baudelaire's day. The Swiss philosopher, J. G. Sulzer, had written in 1771 that the esthetic experience was a way of preserving the unity of human nature. And Schiller, whose writings Baudelaire knew, had insisted that art could help restore the internal totality modern man had lost.5 But I find it most interesting that Victor Cousin, whose spiritualism is usually brushed aside, said almost the same thing in his course of lectures, Du urai, du beau et du bien, which was republished in 1845. "La beaute physique est done le signe d'une beaute interieurequi est la beaute spirituelle et morale et c'est la qu'est le fond, le principe, l'unite du beau."6 And a little farther on he says, "Le beau par excellence satisfait a toutes nos facultes." Cousin does not suggest a fusion but rather a progression from sensation to feeling to thought. I have often told a freshman class in French literature that Victor Hugo could write a poem on anything because he could always find a metaphor to lift his subject, whatever it might be, to transcendency. His poems were in effect illustrations of Cousin's progression. Sometimes he nearly skipped sensation in his early poems, going from emotion to transcendency. In "L'Enfance" he describes the small child singing as the mother agonizes in death the description is of the emotions, for he appeals to our sense of hearing only and then in a very general way: chantait, rale, toussait. The whole poem hangs on the final metaphor which adds a new dimension: La douleurest un fruit; Dieu ne le fait pas croitre Sur la branchetrop faible encor pour le porter. We could perhaps say that the beaute' physique is present in the rhythm; this is of course always true of Hugo's poetry. The progression is still very evident in the beautiful poem, "Saison des semailles." Sensation and emotion are equally appealed to and the final transcendent metaphor really develops from the senses and the feelings. Every student of French can add to these two examples: except for his later, denser poetry Hugo's poems do correspond to Cousin's progression, sometimes more, sometimes less, loosely. In the lyric poetry the final figure reveals Cousin's beaute morale, Baudelaire's morale des choses . . . the indispensable ingredient of the esthetic experience.

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Many readers of Baudelaire must be thinking of the inconsistency this morale des choses seems to present. What of all the passages where Baudelaire refuses to allow a moral role to art? There is no problem if we read la morale des choses as an invitation to transcendency. This phrase signifies that third and greatest mode of the personality, that essentially human attribute that we are in danger of losing as we become weighed down with materialism and find that our will has leaked away. Theophile Gautier understood this progression of appeal-and partly fused it. Here is the explanation of Baudelaire's great admiration for Gautier, the "poete impeccable," the "parfait magicien es lettres francaises" to whom he dedicated the Fleurs du mal. Literary criticism has rather passed over this dedication with a gentle air of indulgence: if this was what Baudelaire wanted, fine. No one has wanted to take it seriously because the pupil has so far outdistanced the master, to use the vocabulary of the rest of the dedication. However, Baudelaire'sdebt to Gautier becomes understandableand of the most profound importance when we see that it was through Gautier's poetry that he began to grasp the meaning of le sentiment du beau.7 For it was Gautier within French literature who dislocated Beauty and made it no longer an objective quality but a subjective feeling. The poets of the French Romantic school were writing beautiful poems that were beautiful expressions of beautiful ideas. Their poems did have themes. Gautier was of course a member of this school but he was more importantly a peintre manque. It was Gerard de Nerval who first took him from his art studio to meet Victor Hugo and the great man's charm plus a lack of talent in painting led him to trade his paintbrush for a pen. But he went at his poetry as if it were a picture. In poem after poem he looks at a scene or a painting, he experiences le sentiment du beau, and then he tries to write a poem describing, repaintingthe scene or picture with words so that his reader will experience this same feeling. The pages of his best-known volume, Emaux et camees,3 offer examples in abundance: "La-bas, sous les arbres s'abrite / Une chaumiere. .." (p. 63); "J'ai dans ma chambre une aquarelle" (p. 87); "On voit dans le musee antique, / Sur un lit de marbre sculpte, / Une statue enigmatique / D'une inquietante beaute"

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Baudelaire and le sentimentdu beau

-poetry, painting, sculpture, music-could all produce the same effect, he grasped the full meaning of the correspondence between the senses. "II est des parfums frais comme des chairs d'enfants, / Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies ..." (p. 87). The differentsensations lead indifferentlyto le sentimentdu beau. And this was one of the theories that he verified in his drug experience. I do not overlook the contemporary practice of making lists of analogies between the senses, and between the senses and moral qualities. However, Baudelaire's poetry does not show an analogical consistency. Instead of considering this a weakness, I interpret it as added proof that correspondences were to him not just a metaphorical language but a way of producing the psychological fusion that was for him the beautiful. It was by virtue of this transpositiondes arts that Gautier partly fused the progression from sense to emotion to thought. Where Hugo and the other Romantic poets had described or poured out an emotion, ornamenting it in varying degrees with appeals to the reader's senses and ending on a transcendentnote, Gautier reduced the three steps to two. The central image of his poem is an appeal to the senses-usually a word picture. He seldom makes emotion explicit, preferring to allow the reader to react emotionally on his own to the picture. But he usually does draw the moral, so to speak: he explains explicitly the transcendent experience he himself has felt. The early "Paysage" (1830) is an example (p. 138), so is "Chinoiserie" (p. 240) from the poems of 1838, so is "Fumee" (p. 63) in Emaux et camees, 1858. It is interesting to note that in this last poem, in 1858, Gautier introduces the suggestion of transcendency into the description as he did not do in 1830 or 1838. The comparison of the dilapidated hut to a living person is suggested in the very first line by the use of the verb, "s'abrite," and the smoke from the chimney is first described by a metaphor: "La respiration se voit." Sometimes Gautier communicates a state of mind by a single extended metaphor which is an imagined picture; the key to the metaphor is a single factual statement. A good example is "Choc de cavaliers" from the 1838 edition of his poetry. Hier il m'a semble(sans doutej'etaisivre) Vbir sur l'archedu pont un choc de cavaliers Tout cuirasses de fer,tout imbriques de cuivre, Et caparagonnes de harnoissinguliers.

(p. 30). He early said in the famous preface to Mademoiselle de Maupin that "la jouissance me parait le but de la vie et la seule chose utile au monde."9 As an artist he is insisting on esthetic enjoyment so that enjoyment and beauty become synonymous to him. In his own essay on Gautier, Baudelaire says that Mademoiselle de Maupin was meant to be an expression of esthetic feeling. "Ce but, cette visee, cette ambition, c'etait de rendre, dans un style approprie, non pas la fureur de l'amour, mais la beaute de l'amour et la beaute des objets dignes d'amour, en un mot l'enthousiasme (bien different de la passion) cree par la beaute" (p. 1030). He continues in characteristicfashion to philosophize on Art. He quotes from another of his own works, the Notes nouvelles sur Edgar Poe in an effort to explain this enthousiasme,this sentiment du beau. "Ainsi le principe de la poesie est, strictement et simplement, l'aspiration humaine vers une Beaute superieure et la manifestation de ce principe est dans un enthousiasme, un enlevement de l'ame..." (p. 1031). He presents this discussion as if it were his own, neglecting to mention that he is really translating Poe's Poetic Principle. The interesting point to make here is that Baudelaireclearly understandsthe shift in esthetics from the search for Absolute Beauty to "le sentiment qu'il fait naitre en nous." Gautier is the "parfait magicien es lettres francaises" because he works on this principle avoiding the beautiful expression of the beautiful idea. And so the solid cornerstone of Baudelaire's esthetic is laid. In the "Salon de 1846" he is already confidently declaring, "II y a autant de beautes qu'il y a de manieres habituelles de chercher le bonheur" (p. 610). Les Fleurs du mal and the esthetic of the Ugly become possible. Que tu viennesdu ciel ou de l'enfer,qu'importe, O Beautd! monstre ?norme, effrayant, ingenu!
(p. 100)

An essential part of Gautier's doctrine of Beauty was his theory of the transpositiondes arts. This theory must have been an easy verbalization of what happened quite naturally to him as he passed from the visual to the verbal. It must have been obvious and fascinating to extend this natural process to the aural-to music. Witness the celebrated "Symphonie en blanc majeur" of which Gautier was openly very proud. Once Baudelaire had fully accepted the idea that the different arts

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B. Osborn Catherine
Des dragons accroupis grommelaient sur leurs casques, Des Medusesd'airainouvraientleurs yeux hagards Dans leurs grands boucliers aux ornements fantasques, Et des noeuds de serpents ecaillaientleurs brassards. Par moment,du rebordde l'arcadegeante, Un cavalierblesseperdantson point d'appui, Un chevaleffaretombaitdans l'eau beante, Gueule de crocodileentr'ouverte sous lui. C'etaitvous, mes desirs,c'etaitvous, mes pensees, Qui cherchieza forcerle passagedu pont, Et vos corpstout meurtris sous leursarmesfaussees, Dormentensevelisdans le gouffreprofond.(p. 224) Sensation and feeling are here fused: no emotion is given but the reader feels horror at the description. The last stanza which throws the horror to the spiritual level doesn't quite succeed in its poetic function (in my opinion), but Gautier's intention is certainly clear. And the technique is also certainly midway between Hugo's emotion and the sorcellerie of Baudelaire. Poetic function is no idle term when one writes of Baudelaire: the poem must work upon the reader, it must give him a beautiful feeling of wholeness, weaving together the parts of his personality which modern life has separated. The poet is a doer; he does create something beautiful. Victor Hugo could write a poem about anything because he could always see a metaphor that would raise the object to a transcendent level-his formula was right but too loose, too obvious. Baudelaire's poetry is frequently referred to as dense, and now it is apparent what this density is: it is a fusion of sense, emotion, and thought. And his sorcellerie was his way of achieving this, his technique. J.-D. Hubert has admirably understood and explained this technique in L'Esthetiquedes Fleurs du mal (Geneve: Pierre Cailler, 1953), his study of ambiguity in Baudelaire's poetry. I believe that the multiplicity of meaning for which this ambiguity is responsible is the mechanism by which Baudelaire involved simultaneously the three aspects of the mind. I do not, however, agree with Hubert's understanding of the poetic function. He feels that Baudelaire's esthetic is a "metaphysique du ceur." Like me he sees Baudelaire's effort to arouse the transcendent capabilities of man, but Hubert writes: "Nous pourrions considerer la poesie baudelairienne et moderne comme un

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depassement conscient et constant de l'immediat, dont la condition prealable serait une affirmation loyale de la vie reelle" (Hubert, p. 266). He goes on to show how Baudelaire uses ambiguity to "reject" the material in order to establish the order of poetic creation where the spirit is free and the transcendent unalloyed. I hope that I have made my position clear: that the effect of Baudelaire's poetry is not a "depassement" of sensation and feeling but rather a restoration of psychic unity. Hubert's excellent analyses support my point of view with this shift in perspective. La sottise, l'erreur, le peche, la lesine, nos corps, Occupentnos espritset travaillent Et nous alimentonsnos aimablesremords, Comme les mendiantsnourrissent leur vermine. (P. 81) Hubert shows how the second verse has both material and spiritual meanings (Hubert, p. 108). He points out that the etymology of "travailler," whose original meaning was "to torture," brings in a new ambiguity. Here I would insist on the direct appeal to sensation, which is certainly developed in the fourth verse. And the fusion is cemented in the third verse by the metaphorical use of "alimenter." This stanza is an excellent example of the harmony of meaning-chords built up on the three modes of sensation, emotion, and thought. Otoison, moutonnant jusque sur l'encolure! Oboucles!0 parfumchargede nonchaloir! Extase!pour peuplerce soir l'alcoveobscure Des souvenirsdormantdans cette chevelure, Je la veux agiterdans l'aircomme un mouchoir!
(p. 101)

Hubert's analysis of "La Chevelure" (p. 176) points out the different levels of meaning produced by skillful juxtaposition of words-a juxtaposition that brings into play the etymology of the words as well as their literal and figurative meanings. I particularly wanted to quote from "La Chevelure"because I want to insist on the frequent use in Baudelaire's poetry of memory to achieve transcendency. These poems have remained outside both the Christian and Satanic interpretations; the theory of fusion includes all the poems regardless of their point of view on the universe. Je suis belle, 6 mortels!commeun revede pierre, Et mon sein, ou chacuns'est meurtritour i tour, Est fait pour inspirerau poete un amour Eternelet muet ainsi que la matiere.

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Baudelaire and le sentiment du beau

du mal. "L'Albatros," for example, had never had the third stanza until 1859. Two stanzas had painted the albatross in very general terms and a last stanza had made the comparison to the poet. The added stanza is by far the best: Ce voyageuraile, commeil est gaucheet veule! Lui, nagueresi beau, qu'il est comiqueet laid! L'un agace son bec avec un brule-gueule, L'autremime,en boitant, l'infirmequi volait! (P. 85) It begins and ends with a transcendent note, the voyageur aile and the qui volait. The exclamation points underline the emotion, the precise actions of the sailors put our sensations and also our feelings into play, and the infirmequi volait ties our feelings to our thoughts. This still is not an example of the marvelous ambiguity, but it certainly shows that Baudelaire (and Charles Asselineau who requested the addition) felt the poem needed emotion (exclamations) and specific sensation (the sailors' actions) woven integrally into the thought. "Le Vin des chiffonniers" as we know it is very differentfrom its earliest version. It is probably not fair to my thesis to include it in the group of early poems. There is, however, one stanza that I would like to discuss. Oui,ces gens harcelesde chagrins de menage, Mouluspar le travailet tourmentes par l'age, Ereinteset pliant sous un tas de debris, Vomissement confus de l'Fnorme Paris, (p. 177, my italics) The italicized words are in the early version, which goes like this: Oui, ces gens tous voutes sous le poids des debris Et des fumiersinfects que rejetteParis, Harasseset chargesde chagrinsde mdnage, Mouluspar le travailet tourmentes par l'age, (p. 1410) I want to point out how much more meaningful is the "Vomissement confus de l'enormeParis" than the "fumiers infects que rejette Paris." The latter stays on a material plane whereas the former becomes a moral indictment. The adjective confus with its psychological implications makes of vomissement a metaphor while our sensations respond to its first meaning. Interestingly enough, in 1857 Baudelaire wrote, "Trouble vomissement du fastueux Paris." At first glance trouble would

Je trone dans l'azur comme un sphinx incompris; a la blancheur des cygnes; J'unisun coeur de neige Je hais le mouvementqui deplaceles lignes, Et jamaisje ne pleureet jamaisje ne ris. Les poetes, devantmes grandesattitudes, aux plus fiersmonuments, Quej'ai l'air d'emprunter Consumeront leursjours en d'austeresetudes; Carj'ai, pour fascinerces dociles amants, De purs miroirs qui font toutes choses plus belles: Mes yeux, mes largesyeux aux clartes eternelles! (p. 96) I quote again from Hubert. "A cause de ces confusions voulues entre l'element sculptural et la volupte, entre la passivite et l'activite poetiques, il s'etablit une identite entre le 'reve de pierre' et la matiere eternelle et muette: la femme et la statue se transforment en une sorte de quintessence materielle, equivalente, en definitive, a l'esprit" (p. 82). This is indeed a complete fusion. It is a fine example of the interpenetration of meanings by which Baudelaire produces in us the mystic fusion that he would call a taste of Paradise. This skillful, knowledgeable use of ambiguity is not to be found in all the poems by any means. If we sort out the seventeen poems that Ernest Prarond assures us were written by 184210and add to them the sonnet "A une dame creole" of 1841, we have a group of eighteen poems that we know are early works. These poems are almost entirely free of ambiguity; they are largely abstract, their effect more dramatic than poetic. There is little direct appeal to the sensations except by the rhythm and sound, and emotion and transcendency remain separate. Only four have a central image: "L'Albatros," "A une malabaraise," "Une Charogne," and "Je n'ai pas oublie." One other can properly be called a series of images: "Le Crepuscule du matin." The comparisons and metaphors are not numerous; their usual function is to make intelligible a particular state of mind or to impose a moral judgment. From the point of view of technique Baudelaire is here working more like the most familiar Hugo, relying like him on music to create the poetry. Before examining closely four of these poems, comparing them to four later ones on similar subjects, I would like to study some of the changes that Baudelaire made in these poems before he published them in the 1861 edition of Les Fleurs

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Catherine B. Osborn
Seem to be the adjective de choix because it is ambiguous and can ride on either the material or the spiritual plane. But confus certainly is better; the explanation must be that the material weight of the third verse pulls trouble down so far that the magic of ambiguity doesn't work and the moral indictment doesn't come off. "Le Guignon" is not in the group of very early poems. I am including it here, however, as it has an interesting variant. It appears for the first time as one of the "Douze poemes" sent in 1852 to Gautier. It is a sonnet in octosyllabics modeled on Longfellow and Gay as M. Vivier was the first to point out." In 1952 the second tercet read like this: Maintefleur Epanche en secret Son parfumdoux comme un regret Dans les solitudesprofondes.(p. 1386) It is an interesting variation of Gray's lines: "Full many a flower is born to blush unseen / And waste its sweetness on the desert air." The idea of waste has turned into "doux comme un regret" which touches sense, emotion, and thought. But the interesting point to make is that in the Fleurs du ma! Baudelaire has reversed the two words secret and regret so that the stanza reads: Maintefleur dpanchea regret Son parfumdoux comme un secret Dans les solitudesprofondes.(p. 92) The change in effect is astonishing. Yet it certainly is another example of the overlapping of sensation and feeling and thought so that the reader cannot read out lines expending one effect at a time, but instead is rathercoiled up upon himself ready for that resolution in unity which the greater poems bring. I would also like to remind the reader that Les Fleurs du mal, "titre-calembour" as Baudelaire himself called it, was not the first title he gave to his projected volume of verse. The first was Les Lesbiennes, surely chosen for its shock appeal, then Les Limbes, rich in suggestion but purely on the transcendent level, and finally Les Fleurs du mal. Its ambiguity does evoke the threefold effect. The first pair of poems that I would like to examine is the two "Crepuscules." I have already said that the "Crepuscule du matin" can be described as a series of descriptive images. Within them there are three similes which explain the emotional effect of the dying lamp, the morning air, and the cock's crow; three metaphors describe

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the dreams, the awakening mind, the morning mists. The rest is straightforward discursive description leading up to the two personifications which sum up the preceding images-advancing dawn and Paris getting back to work. The poem is good for its kind but it has no sorcellerie. On the other hand, the "Crepusculedu soir" is a good example of sorcellerie, yet it also is basically a series of descriptive images. What makes the difference? There are six similes, two personifications, and really only one metaphor. We must honestly say as above that the rest is straightforward discursive description, and the poem ends with a moral pronouncement on the futility of the people's lives. What does make the difference? The ironic introduction of lovely evening friend of the criminal who comes a pas de loup immediately sets up the equivalence and hence the ambiguity of evening, crime, and bestiality (transcendency, emotion, and sensation). Not only the similes, but the vocabulary feed this ambiguity right through the poem. The animal similes comparing prostitution to an ant heap and then to a worm make the readerhear "siffler,""glapir," and "ronfler"as animal noises first and only second as the appropriate night noises of the kitchen, theater, and orchestra. The initial ambiguity has been so reinforced that the reader easily accepts "La sombre Nuit les prend a la gorge," for Night is the criminal, Night is the wild beast. The poem becomes so anchored in materialism and horror that the lightening of the last four verses is needed to recapturethought and reinvolve it in this tragic appraisal of Paris at night. The structure of "Une Charogne" is simple-a central image and a comparison of the beloved to the carrion. It is the only early poem that appeals predominantly to the sensations. Contrast increases the horror, and most of the similes serve this function. The eighth stanza compares the decomposing form to an unfinished artist's sketch which must be completed from memory. This is the stanza that prepares the final thrust: Alors, o ma beaut6!dites a la vermine Qui vous mangerade baisers Que j'ai gardela forme et l'essence divine De mes amoursddcomposes! (p. 107) The fusion is there, certainly, but it comes from the high degree of sensation and emotion the poem has built up and from the ghastly subjectitself. The

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1134

and le sentimentdu beau Baudelaire

tations and they remain for the most part discursive and abstract. "Une Nuit que j'etais pres d'une affreuse Juive" (p. 108) is a meditation on his absent mistress who becomes idealized in contrast to the physically present prostitute. Here again the subject contains the three elements of sensation, emotion, and thought, although Baudelaire does not yet know how to play them in harmony. The appeals to sensation are vague and based on abstract thought. The perfect example is the one simile, found in the second verse, "Comme au long d'un cadavre un cadavre etendu." Baudelaire often uses the word cadavre to describe the lover spent and apparently at peace, for eroticism anchored in the material can bring only a peace that resembles death. The poem continues discursively to the seventh verse, "Ses cheveux qui lui font un casque parfume,"-hardly an impressive metaphor. The third verse of the first tercet is the best of the poem, "Deroule le tresor des profondes caresses," for this verse does by metaphor accomplish the fusion of effects. But even this verse pales beside the magnificent verses of "La Chevelure" (p. 101). Compare the "Je me pris a songer ..." of the early poem to the first stanza of "La Chevelure" which I have quoted earlier. I find it fascinating that transcendency as well as sensation
and feeling has become more specific . . no

technique is not new. But neither is the technique new in "Un Voyage a Cythere," the poem I have chosen (for obvious reasons) to discuss with "Une Charogne." For here, too, there is a decomposing corpse central to the poem although it is not a central image as in "Une Charogne." Baudelaire has this time given equal space to the contrasting glory of the days when love was in power. This poem was also one of the Douze poemes of 1852, and it has been considered by many critics to be among Baudelaire's finest poems. It is intensely dramatic with its vivid contrasts and its agonizing comparisons. Baudelairehimself says in the next to last stanza that it is an allegory, that he sees himself in the rotting pendu of Cytherea. The allegory is told straightforwardly and again as in "Une Charogne," the fusion follows automatically the subject with its acute sensations, vibrant emotions, and the transcendent interpretation of the end. There is no need for the coiling harmony of meanings. But it is interesting to note that Baudelaire does repeat three times the theme of the horrible punishment the corpse is receiving, the last time with reference to his own past. I see no ambiguity in the technique at all. The poem is a story of the and of the agony that love-eroticism-brings damage it wreaks on mind and body. If the reader knows the important relationship Baudelaire found between sexuality and poetic capacity, and between poetic power and redemption, he can find an ambiguity in the allegory. Butor has explained this progression: "Cette sexualite masculine exprimera, annoncera d'autant mieux le pouvoir poetique, qu'elle sera pour l'individu un moyen de se distinguer d'autrui, de s'opposer a la societe, de la scandaliser; c'est done avant tout la sexualite irreguliere qui sera le signe, l'erotisme, non la generation, d'autant plus signe que plus visible, que l'individu portera les marques, les stigmates de son commerce."'2 And Hubert has seen in this "Voyage" a travesty of Christianity; he feels that the gallows are also the cross and the poete pendu the victim and the Saviour (p. 228). I cannot agree with this interpretation because it seems to me to be emotionally inconsistent with the last two verses: "-Ah, Seigneur! donnez-moi la force et le courage / De contempler mon cceur et mon corps sans degout!" (p. 189). My own feeling is that this is an early poem also, written not too long after "Une Charogne," and proclaiming Baudelaire's tragic experience with eroticism. Most of the early poems can be classed as medi-

longer a vague abstraction but instead precise memories. This is the great secret of Baudelaire's best poetry: the technical ambiguity produced largely by metaphor permits not only repeated fusion but more precise effects which make the fusion operate more rapidly. Compare again these two verses from the early poem, "Ses cheveux qui lui font un casque parfume, / Et dont le souvenir pour l'amour me ravive," to the following stanza from "La Chevelure": Cheveuxbleus, paviliondes tenebrestendues, Vous me rendezl'azurdu ciel immenseet rond; Surles bordsduvetesde vos mechestordues des senteursconfondues Je m'enivreardemment De l'huile de coco, du muse et du goudron. Here the ambiguity between the hair and the ship which was suggested in the first stanza is strengthened by precise references. Transcendency is precise: he sees again the tropical skies, he smells the tropical fragrances. Even the "pavillon des tenebres tendues" seems precise for the dark hair which he is shaking out. It is interesting that in explaining the transcendency I used the sensa-

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Catherine.B. Osborn
tions... this shows how intertwined are all the appeals. The "bords duvetes de vos meches tordues" is both of the hair and of the ship, and the perfumes he is smelling are hers, the ship's, and the tropical island's. And the emotions are named: "Extase!" in the first stanza, here "Je m'enivre ardemment." The progress from the early sonnet is tremendous, and yet we found the basic elements present there, but strung out loosely and discursively stated. The great ennui poems are probably most truly Baudelaire's. He describes and analyzes a state of mind by an expert perceptive use of metaphor. A comparison of "Le Mauvais Moine" (p. 91) and "J'ai plus de souvenirs que si j'avais mille ans" (p. 145) will show once more how Baudelaire worked to make his effects more precise and the grand effect of his mystic fusion more frequent. If we except the phrase, "pieuses entrailles," which certainly cannot claim much merit, there is no figure in the two quatrains of "Le Mauvais Moine." He addresses himself as the "moine faineant" in the last tercet. The other image is the simple metaphor of the first tercet: -Mon ame est un tombeauque, mauvaiscenobite, Depuisl'eternite je parcours etj'habite; Rien n'embellitles mursde ce cloitreodieux. The effects could be called linear here: one effect for each line, emotion, transcendency, and sensation. How far Baudelaire developed his technique can be shown from three lines of "J'ai plus de souvenirs": -Je suis un cimetiereabhorrede la lune, Oui,commedes remords,se trainentde longs vers Qui s'acharnenttoujours sur mes morts les plus chers.

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Here, instead of one effect per line, each of the lines makes its triple appeal. In the second line I would also like to point out a specific example of a new technique where the worms are compared to remorse instead of the customary method of comparing an abstract quality to something tangible. This is like the reversal of phrases we found in "Le Guignon" and has the same coiling effect. But it is unfair to isolate these lines; behind the metaphor of the cemetery we already have a crescendo of breath-stopping images. The poet's brain is the old bureau full of personal mementos; it is a pyramid, a tomb more full of corpses than the pauper's grave. Each of these images makes more precise one of the strands of the poet's mental state and endows each verse with the excitement of discovery. And the power of the music, rhythm, and sound is always there to enhance the "beaute physique" and to give the reader an allimportant firsthand sensation. Baudelaire's technique is now perfected: his subjects have become excitingly original, problems that involve the total personality; his images perform the miracle of fusion which his marvelous music underscoresand enhances. "La peinture est une evocation, une operation magique." For Baudelairepoetry, too, was a magic operation, and the magic it worked was the awakening of le sentimentdu beau. But he was the magician, consciously and knowledgeably marshaling and maneuvering his effects to give his readers a fleeting sense of wholeness. Le sentiment du beau, like la joie, is one. Simon's Rock College Great Barrington, Massachusetts

Notes
'Charles Baudelaire,CEuvres (Paris: Gallimard,1956), p. 692. All referencesto Baudelaire's writingswill be to this edition and the page numbersare incorporated in the text. 2 The Sense of Beauty (New York: Scribners, 1896), p. 269. 3 See Andrew G. Lehmann, The Symbolist Aesthetic in mann calls this a "curiousdivision of the faculties of the mind." He is discussingthe theoriesof Teodor de Wyzewa who sees all experiencein termsof sensation,emotion, and intellection. Lehmann quotes from Wyzewa's article on
France, 1885-95 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1950), p. 196. Leh-

"L'Artwagnerien, la peinture" publishedin the Revue Wagnerienne of 1886: "Or la vie est dans l'union de ces trois modes." Unlike Lehmann I find Wyzewa's analysis important because it is additional supportiveevidence that this theory was under discussion in Baudelaire'sartistic circles.
4L'Univers poetique de Baudelaire (Paris: Mercure de

France, 1956),p. 135. Austin does not pursuean analysisof this unity of the humanmind. He is interestedin establishing his thesisthat Baudelaire's estheticsrestson his doctrine of correspondances and on his theoryof the imagination.

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1136

Baudelaire and le sentiment du beau

I do not feel that this interpretationtakes into sufficient accountthe phrase,"parfaitmagicienes lettresfranCaises."' 8 Theophile Gautier, Emaux et camees (Paris: Garnier, 1954). All page referencesare to this edition.
9 Theophile Gautier, Mademoiselle de Maupin (Paris:

6 See Katharine Everett Gilbert and Helmut Kuhn, A History of Esthetics,rev. and enl. ed. (Bloomington:Univ. of Indiana Press, 1953), pp. 296, 364. 6 21e ed. (Paris: Didier, 1879), p. 166. 7 For another recent reading of the dedication see Emmanuel J. Mickel, Jr., The Artificial Paradises in French Literature, I: The Influence of Opium and Hashish on the Literature of French Romanticism and Les Fleurs du mal,

Garnier, 1966), p. 24.

10Martin Turnell, Baudelaire: A Study of His Poetry

(Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1953),p. 77. Gimbloux, 1952).

12 Michel

Univ. of North Carolina Studies in Romance Langs. (ChapelHill: Univ. of North CarolinaPress, 1969),p. 138. He suggeststhat GautierintroducedBaudelaireto hashish and that this explains Baudelaire'sextravagantwording.

11Robert Vivier, L'Originalite' de Baudelaire (Bruxelles: Butor, Histoire extraordinaire, essai sur un reve

de Baudelaire (Paris: Gallimard,1961), p. 64.

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