'Petrarquisant sur l'horrible' in 'Les Fleurs du Mal': Eros and the art of poetry, from the Troubadours to Baudelaire

This dissertation reexamines Baudelaire's aesthetics in his theory and argues that unlike what critics have established he did not contest Romanticism or found a new literary movement. Baudelaire's romanticism is reflected not only in his theory but also in his poetry, as the study of the theme of Eros in Les Fleurs du Mal demonstrates. Although the study of Eros has received considerable attention from critics, I argue that they have often distorted the meaning of Eros in Baudelaire's poems by viewing them through a narrow lens of either thematic criticism or theories of modernity, the psychoanalytic interpretation, and limited acknowledgment of literary history. As I will argue, the common element in critical orientations that take such approaches is the exaggeration (or diminishment) of elements that are in Baudelaire's poetry, as if those elements could provide an explanation of the aesthetic or critical interest of his work. The critical challenge is to resist such partiality and, free of special pleading, to read Baudelaire more comprehensively. I use the formalist approach to read Baudelaire's love poetry and I also contextualize Baudelaire in the literary field, comparing him with poets starting with the Troubadours. I argue that Baudelaire's originality is to be found in the poems that “petrarchise on the horrible” and frequently present a male subject who as a result of erotic victimization describes brutal vendettas against his idealized lovers, unlike any other contemporary lyric subject.