L’inépuisable fonds de l’universelle analogie: Baudelaire et la comparaison

Abstract

If, for Charles Baudelaire, to compare means to “draw from the inexhaustible well of universal analog y” thus to reveal the connections which constitute the aims of a man or an artist’s life, we can begin to understand the prominence of the comparative figure in his poetics. Distinct from the metaphor, to which it had been connected throughout the centuries, this figure, through the use of ‘comme’ [simile] – which, according to Meschonnic’s definition, is the source of new relationships – is characterized by configurations and specific potentialities. All of these elements allow for the distortion of – and recreation of – reality, thanks to the formation of new relations between them. Subjected to the ‘scientific’ analysis of language established by the symbolist writer, comparison is invested with a poetic power that engenders new meanings. The most original of these will be analyzed as they appear in Les Fleurs du Mal.