Les Maitres du sensible: L'esthetique de Baudelaire et de Flaubert a la lumiere des conceptions medicales de leur epoque

The second half of the 19th century witnessed the emergence of institutionalized disciplines with specific areas of expertise and methodological standards. In the same period, writers—chief among them Baudelaire and Flaubert—sought to define literature as an autonomous field of activity with its own legitimacy. Scientific and literary endeavors have a priori little in common. Yet, writers rely at times on scientific knowledge. What makes science so appealing to them?;I explore these issues by considering the case of Baudelaire's and Flaubert's dialogue with medicine. Baudelaire and Flaubert are drawn to medicine, in particular psychiatry, because its topics of interest intersect with their own literary interests. In addition, medicine provides them with a perspective (the “clinical gaze” and the “medical view of life”) that promotes the virtues of precision and impassivity. Both authors turn medical knowledge into a polemical weapon against sentimental effusion and romantic subjectivism.;Yet, these borrowings—and herein lies the paradox—go along with a fierce critique of medicine. Flaubert and Baudelaire denounce physicians for their arrogance and thirst for prestige. They lay bare the narrow-mindedness, hidden moralism and bourgeois conformism underlying medical assumptions about human nature and sensibility. In particular, they reject medical theories that depict artistic creation as a by-product of pathology. At stake is the autonomy of their art. Their aesthetics—based on hard work, willpower and lucidity—are an attempt to pull artistic creation from medicine's grasp.;In developing a critical dialogue with medicine, Baudelaire and Flaubert achieve an increased awareness of their artistic identity. From this viewpoint literature defines itself through its confrontation with other forms of knowledge. Both authors rank literature's cognitive contribution as equal or even superior to that of medicine. The rivalry is particularly strong in areas where both disciplines compete for cognitive legitimacy. Debates on the issue of sensibility are exemplary in this regard. Baudelaire and Flaubert turn sensibility into an aesthetic category and deny physicians any competence in this matter: artists only, the true “masters of sensibility,” have the insights and therefore the capacity to explore its intricacies.