The plausibility achieved in the identification of real or imaginary paradoxes

Nevertheless let us consider two passages between which nothing of the kind exists: on the one hand «Nature is a temple» and on the other the following enumeration «…amber, musk, benzoin and incense…» The relation between them seems less powerful than if they had both appeared within the same first quatrain.

To affirm in the last lines of the sonnet that the incense is corrupted presents a paradox since the priests who use it adopt a contrary view. As for the anthology of poems "the Flowers of Evil" in which „Correspondences“ appears as the fourth piece, its very title provides a clash of meaning, since usually flowers are thought of as pure while evil is portrayed on the side of corruption.

Since the poem abounds with paradoxes and is simultaneously animated by the concern to avoid the proliferation of formal connections, it provides satisfactory conditions for the examination of our introductory views.

«Nature» in the poem does not consist of the idea of nature as a significance, nor even of nature itself, which is an object. No: «Nature» is presented as a word written with a capital letter at the beginning even though it is only in second place in the sentence where it appears.

The author of „Correspondences“ on the contrary left so little room for the manoeuvres of others that he immediately gave the sonnet for publication in 1857 with the complete collection in which it appeared [662].

Claude Pichois does not reject the audacious construction of Felix Leakey who imagined two stages in the genesis of the poem: he contends that Baudelaire first wrote the second quatrain and the triplets around 1846, and then completed the sonnet in 1852 at the earliest. Nevertheless he will have been well aware of the significance of the whole piece before it was published [667].

As for Baudelaire, he was very disappointed in his readers, seeming to have been surprised by their disparate comprehension [630].

In „Correspondences“ the fifth line evoking long echoes designates objects that can still be referred to. Now as far as the rules of the significances are concerned, since the first two lines read thus: «Nature is a temple where living pillars
Let forth at times confused words…» the rules of grammar oblige us to take «where» as the representative of «temple».

Baudelaire’s text is teeming with strange ideas: it evokes a "temple-Nature"; living pillars which deliver a confused address; symbols which observe; the conversation of perfumes, colours and sounds; the corruption of incense; and the song of heady scents.

If a peak must be recognized as having the advantage of constituting an object, it still differs a great deal from a buffer. The examination of texts concerning Ulysses or legendary beings can show this. In particular a peak cannot be identified practically in a unique way, be this way ever so simple, by the audience of the text which designates it. How, for example, could the readership of „Correspondences“ have understood in a single way what the act of responding is when it is evoked in the eighth line: «…Perfumes, colours and sounds answer each other.»

Let us imagine the following proposition: “yes, the significance of "Nature" is more important that of "temple"”. And then this one: “no, the significance of "Nature" is not more important than that of "temple"”. In each case the members «Nature» and «temple» concern the same text; the relation consists of a significance; and the choice of option is made. The formulae therefore prove to be direct.

In the poem «parfums» is found in the eighth line and then in the ninth without any major difference in significance, and yet no matter: the compartments must not be confused.

Here are two examples of arbitration b(Nature–temple), and d(Nature–temple). For each the problem of its verity is posed, but in the debate on this point there is the advantage of at least not having to worry about difficult interpretations of the text, which one would be deluded into seeing as significances expressed by it and unquestionably present for the creator. The opposite becomes obligatory when starting from the compartments, with the most elementary examination.

The formula b(corrupt–temple) does not express the idea of a corrupted temple, and b(temple–corrupt) has the same significance as it; or again b(Nature–temple) is no different from b(temple–Nature), except in its presentation. On the other hand “dogs are mammals” does not mean at all the same thing as “mammals are dogs”. To be sure the attribution often justifies the positive arbitration, in b, but it in no way becomes identified with it for all that. It must simply be watched to provide the intuitions that can be used for the analysis.

So in that case since no association or dissociation of words in arbitrations is known, two words from among those in a text, for example in the case of b(corrupt–temple), are by no means the basis on which the judgement here bears.

To maintain that b(answer–perfumes) and then to accept b(Correspondences–perfumes), while disregarding the difficulty of the passage from one point to the other would be superficial. To be sure the common root of «Correspondances» and «répondent» (answer) as well as the overall significance of the text render the parallel inevitable, but the identification remains unjustified because as one of the terms figures in the title and the other in the eighth line, their differences, though limited, are thrown into relief.

We may quote various cases at random: it is not possible to speak reasonably of the significances arising from the repetition of “en” and “an” at the end of the poem when Baudelaire evokes the perfumes «…Comme l'ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l'encens,
Qui chantent les transports de l'esprit et des sens.» (…Like amber, musk, benzoin and incense,/Which sing of the transports of the mind and the senses.) What also is the significance of the N in «Nature»? Does the symbol designate the world or a deity; or a woman since man passes through it? And what then are the living pillars? Let us think of the following lines [669]-[[1132]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1132]]: «She dazzles like the Dawn
And comforts like the Night…

Oh mystic metamorphosis
Of all my senses fused into one!
Her breath makes music,
As her voice makes perfume.» Nerval wrote with gravity [551]: «A woman deified, mother, spouse or lover…» Besides, Michel Quesnel declares that the «hautbois» (oboes) are the “hauts bois” (“high woods”, its homophone) of the forests of symbols [820]. Then the delicate tints of infant skin are evoked in the ninth line, which begins «Il est»; could this mean “lait” (milk)? (N.B. similar pronunciation of «Il est» and “lait”.) «Encens» could also be split to produce “en sang” (in blood or bloody), or «benjoin» divided into “bain joint” (joint bath), which all together would give the ideas of milk, blood and water. Finally why not read «…les transports de l'esprit et des sens.» (…the transports of the mind and the senses.) as “…les transes, ports de laits pris et des sangs.” (…trances, ports of milk taken and of blood.) and «symboles» as “seins-bols” (breasts-bowls), to connect the ideas afterwards? Provisionally we will leave all this aside, along with the interpretation of the rhymes even though this is usually held to be less dangerous.

Just before „Correspondences“ ein the collection appears „Elevation“ which has a Platonic theme, and straight after the poem we are concerned with, comes a piece whose first two lines are as follows [486]-[732]-[[1031]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1031]]-[[1063]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1063]]: «I love the memory of those naked times,
Whose statues the sun loves to gild.» Thus to envisage a Greek reference for „Correspondences“ becomes justifiable and the idea of a sacred place where living pillars produce strange words comes to mind: «…Dodona of the talking oaks…» according to Ovid [565]. A shrine had been established there to honour Zeus, and a prophet was employed in interpreting the sounds of the foliage, by which the god was reputed to pronounce the oracles [486]-[487]: «…living pillars
Let forth at times confused words…» Edgar Allan Poe, some of whose writings Baudelaire translated, wrote [796]: «… holy, holy things were heard of old by the dim leaves that trembled around Dodona…» The poet could have also been thinking of Africa, which he barely knew and whose forest Chateaubriand saw as the model for the temples [192]-[628]-[668]-[[1127]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1127]]-[[1129]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1129]]. Baudelaire was keen on this author, and as he was also interested in America, the example of the beliefs current in the New World could also have occurred to him. Antoine Adam shows moreover that Esquiros, a friend of the poet, compares the world to the Temple of Isis, or to the forest [8]-[663]-[810]. Nerval, ever respectful of antiquity, asks [549]: «Do you recognize the Temple of immense peristyle…» Not far from Baudelaire in this he declares [554]«My books, bizarre accumulation of the science of all times…» and his perspective can even be transformed to permit the conception of the temple of reality as having no builder, and this appears in at least one verse [548]: «The god is missing at the altar, where I am the victim…» The temple built by Solomon would provide a very different illustration. According to the Bible, the king declared to the master of Tyre [116]: «Now therefore command thou that they hew me cedar trees out of Lebanon…» The narrative continues [117]: «So Hiram gave Solomon cedar trees and fir trees…» The temple took shape under the direction of the king [118]: «So he built the house, and finished it; and covered the house with beams and boards of cedar. And then he built chambers against all the house, five cubits high: and they rested on the house with timber of cedar.» But the rest of the episode does not fit well since it would hardly engender the "world-temple-forest" image [119]: «So Solomon overlaid the house within with pure gold…» Unless we turn to a new passage [120]: «And he built the inner court with three rows of hewed stone, and a row of cedar beams.» The Bible also provides another traditional theme that Baudelaire could easily have known, that of the joy felt by nature [123]-[133]: «Then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice…» In any case Claude Pichois brings us to the consideration that another reference is of major importance, that to Chateaubriand when he wrote [193]- [668]: «The forests of the Gauls have passed in their turn into the temples of our fathers…» This theme captivated people’s minds at that time and Balzac suggested the following landscape [73]: «…a long forest walk like the nave of some cathedral, where the trees are the pillars, where their branches form the arches of the vault, at the end of which a distant clearing where light is mixed with shadows or tinged with the reds of the setting sun breaks through the leaves and shows what looks like the coloured stained glass windows of a choir full of birds in song.» Lastly the idea also occurred to Vigny when he spoke of the columns of the forest, or even the censers formed by the flowers [964]. As far as the reflections of Baudelaire as regards the scope of such images are concerned, Claude Pichois draws our attention to a letter which shows the poet both laughing at the fantasies of which some people believed him the victim, and extremely interested in noble reverie [637]-[668]-[[1126]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1126]]-[[1128]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1128]]: «…you ask me for some verses for your slim volume, verses on "Nature" I believe? on the woods, the great oaks, the verdure, the insects, -the sun no doubt? But, you know very well that I am incapable of being moved by plant life…I will never believe that "the soul of the Gods lives in plants", and even if it did, I would concern myself but little with it, and would consider my own soul as of far greater worth than those of sanctified vegetables…In the depths of the woods, enclosed under these vaults like those of sacristies and cathedrals, I think of our amazing cities, and the prodigious music which rolls on the summits seems to me to be the translation of human lamentations.»

In his private life above all Baudelaire seems to have played with concepts a lot, and he was even able to do so with his name which when considered as a noun means a sort of curved sword (falchion) [496]- [590]- [[1114]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1114]]. As an enthusiast of poetical comparisons, he could have known, as Antoine Adam observes, the intuitions of Schelling, taken up by Germaine de Staël [8]-[934]: «What could be more surprising, for example, than the relation between sounds and forms, between sounds and colours?» Nor did the poet fail to take an interest in the one hundred and one currents of the most impassioned thinking, and consequently it is often admitted that in 1857 he knew certain of the vague conceptions of Swedenborg, Maistre, Wronski and Alphonse Louis Constant [8]-[377]-[662]. Marc Eigeldinger notes [7]-[378]-[663]: «Jacques Crépet can be credited with having pointed out that "The Correspondences" which appears in "The Three Harmonies" (1845) by Abbé Constant could be considered as one of the sources of the sonnet "Correspondences".» And since there is no certainty in this respect, he quotes part of the text to serve a reflection which is linked to nothing here: «Formed of visible locutions,
This world is the dream of God;
His word chooses the symbols,
The spirit fills them with his fire.» Also: «Nothing is mute in nature
For he who follows its laws:
The stars can write,
The flowers of the field have a voice,
Word bursting into the dark nights,
Expressions rigorous as numbers.» Claude Pichois insists on the two significances imagined for the word “correspondence” [666]. On the one hand there is the one concerning the relations between objects in nature: «…Perfumes, colours and sounds answer each other.» And on the other the one regarding the relations between the world and the supernatural: «Nature is a temple». Baudelaire speaks in a letter in the same way of «"l'analogie universelle"» and of «la "correspondance"» [10]-[612]-[640]. He adds [379]-[641]: «…Nature is a "word", an allegory, a mould, a "foil"…» The image is close to those beloved of writers he likes to quote such as Hoffmann [9]-[12]-[439]-[607]-[693]: «…I find an analogy and an intimate connection between colours, sounds and perfumes. It seems to me that all these things were engendered by the same ray of light, and that they must unite in a marvellous concert. The scent of red and brown marigolds has above all a magic effect on me. It makes me fall into a profound reverie, and I hear as in the distance the low, deep sounds of the oboe.» In the same way as he does for Jean Pommier regarding the previous passage, Claude Pichois praises Felix Leakey for having directed his thoughts to a page of Nerval where he says [553]-[662]-[664]: «Everything lives, everything acts, everything corresponds…» A passage from Balzac gives the other facet of this view [61]: «According to the admissions and the manifestations of all somnambulists, this state constitutes a delightful existence in which the inner being, freed from all the hindrances of visible nature on the exercise of his faculties, walks in the world that we wrongly call invisible. Sight and hearing function more perfectly than in the so-called "wakeful" state, and perhaps without the assistance of the organs which are the sheaths of those luminous swords called sight and hearing!» Léon Cellier, quoting Sainte-Beuve’s notes of 1846, indirectly underlines the profound knowledge Baudelaire had of Balzac’s novels [180]: «I saw my dear libertine friend and he told me the strangest things in literature and in poetry, but he is witty and enlightens me on supervening generations. He adores Balzac and has given me a very amusing theory on him which is precious for me specifically because it is right from the point of view of that author, and it helps me to follow his thought.» At the risk of a slight misunderstanding Gautier’s notes on the effects of hashish may readily be stressed [409]: «…sounds…gushed out blue and red…» He wrote elsewhere, without reference to narcotic drugs, as follows [404]: «…I am discovering marvellous affinities and sympathies, I can hear the language of roses…» Perhaps this is the language thus referred to by Baudelaire [[1034]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1034]]: «…The language of flowers and silent things!» Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe he declared [685]: «The Imagination is an all but divine faculty which perceives…the intimate and secret relationships between things, the correspondences and the analogies.» And later in the same study [486]- [665]-[686]: «It is that admirable, that immortal instinct for Beauty which leads us to consider the earth and its spectacles as a glimpse, as a correspondence with Heaven.» Poe himself wrote [8]-[665]-[792]: «The material world…abounds with very strict analogies to the immaterial…» He was dreaming of [795]«…that "analogy" which speaks in proof-tones to the imagination alone, and to the unaided reason bears no weight…» He also contemplated describing the foundations of the world through the idea that in a sense [793]: «This matter is God». Several Renaissance writers could have passed on these views, but it is doubtful whether Baudelaire would have had a detailed knowledge of their books [396]. On the other hand classical authors were very strong on such ideas [668]. Plato recounted the myth of the fabrication of the concrete by a prodigious craftsman [756]: «…the God, having decided to form the World resembling as nearly as possible the most beautiful of intelligible beings and a Being perfect in every respect, made a Living Being, unique, visible, having within himself all the Living Beings which are by nature of the same sort as him.» A curious world [761]: «…Visible Living Being which envelops all visible living beings…» Plotinus passed from the pedagogical myth to the system and mused in this way [781]«…things must not depend on each other, but all resemble each other in some connection. And this is perhaps the meaning of that well-known saying: "Analogy maintains all."» In this case [782]«Is not the world a god…» and then [784]: «Here is a unique nature which is the totality of beings; it is therefore a great god; or rather it is not a particular god, but the universal god, since it sees fit to be all things.» He comes back sometimes to the author he thinks he is explaining [785]«This is why Plato says these enigmatic words: The essence is split up infinitely."» The charm of these reflections cannot be denied, we taste them without understanding them, immersed in their solemn sweetness [667].

(Nature–temple) as a framework avoids both b(Nature–temple) and d(Nature–temple), and so provides without judgement an idea relating to the significances «Nature» and «temple», debated more freely even than in the game recounted in „the Life of Æsop the Phrygian“, a text which is accessible to any student since La Fontaine translated it [383]-[483]: «…the king sent to Heliopolis for certain persons shrewd in mind and wise in enigmatic questions. He gave them a sumptuous banquet to which the Phrygian was invited. During the meal they proposed various things to Æsop, among them the following. There is a great temple, supported by a pillar surrounded by twelve towns, each of which has thirty flying-buttresses, and round these flying-buttresses walk, one after the other, two women, one white, one black. "You should put this question" said Æsop "to the little children of our country. The temple is the world; the pillar, the year; the towns are the months; and the flying- buttresses, the days, around which turn alternately day and night."»

Thus (answer–mind) and (answer–senses) have no guarantor for no evidence exists of any link established by Baudelaire between the significances examined. On the contrary (long–echoes) is obvious since from the text an undeniable connection can be discerned grammatically between the terms concerned.

Beyond the range of solid novelties, the scope of precise details on views expressed previously unfolds, and so we are able to ask whether pillars guiding the voice of heaven to earth are not designated in the first lines of the poem, and it is open to us to support this with some of the most classic words, those of Virgil [966]: «…the oak, giant of the forest, whose foliage is beloved of Jupiter, and the roburs which, according to the Greeks impart oracles.»

In this way as the end of the second line prevents d(forth–words) from being accepted as broad, the position b is the only one in this case that permits the arbitration to be broad.

For (Nature–temple) the orientation is confined to (b), but that of (corrupt–temple) is composed of (b, d) since b(corrupt–incense) is entirely unavoidable in view of the last four lines, and then this first idea must be linked to what is known of the role of the incense justifying the passage to the notion of temple, which does not prevent d(corrupt–temple) from being seen also as broad.

Unfortunately there are still problems. It would be laughable to affirm that Baudelaire, when he wrote in a sonnet «Nature is a temple» and went on to evoke the corruption of incense, established no connection between the two passages. As far as the foundation is concerned now, the idea animates the biblical episode of the tradesmen thrown out of the temple [126]- [145]: «It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.» In the Bible can also be found, alongside the theme of a sacred place one day desecrated, that of a sanctuary tainted with corruption from the start [121]: «For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and went not fully after the Lord, as did David his father. Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods.» We do not know for „Correspondences“ whether the "temple-world" is really perceived by Baudelaire as afflicted with corruption, and even supposing it is, we do not know either if the image concerns more the theme of evil present from the start, or the opposite. 10

Thus b(answer–perfumes) is an example but not b(answer each other–perfumes), since once the first compartment is removed from the left-hand member, we arrive back at an arbitration. None of the following formulae is appropriate for a pointer: b(answer each other–perfumes colours); b(answer each other–colours sounds); b(answer each other–perfumes colours sounds). On the other hand the arbitrations b(answer–sounds) and b(answer–colours) are irreducible. It could be argued that by omitting some compartments the significance is seriously impaired, and that according to the poem the colours for example do not answer each other in the first place, but answer more obviously the perfumes and sounds. However, if we avoid the game of pretending not to understand, it will be recognized that nothing prevents the significances from being correctly dealt with, by means of irreducible arbitrations. For instance, after having shown the interest of b(answer–perfumes) and b(answer–colours), it will be emphasized that it is important to apprehend b(perfumes–colours) and b(each–answer).

The strangeness of the assertion regarding the corruption of the incense combined with the evocation of the pleasantness of perfumes of the other kind, recalls the mixed impression suggested by the following stanza [[1049]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1049]]: «Now comes the time when quivering on its stem
Each flower like a censer exhales its scent;
Sounds and perfumes turn in the evening air,
-Melancholy waltz and languid vertigo!»

From «répondent» (answer) to «enfants» (children) five fronts can be counted: “…Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent./////(Il) est (des) parfums frais comme (des) chairs (d')/////enfants…” (…Perfumes, colours and sounds answer each other. There are perfumes as cool as the flesh of children…)

Certainly rb(Nature–temple) is a broad tension with great intuitive force. On the other hand rb(corrupt–temple) has a serious weakness in spite of its verisimilitude, and anyone who declares himself over sure of its validity will be suspected of reading into the text.

The reason why it seems out of the question to pursue any analysis of the probabilities regarding the value of the interpretations is that the significance possibilities, unlike those of the fall of coins and dice, are partially unpredictable. One interesting brain-wave, even if debatable, could provide an interpretation of such and such a line of „Correspondences“ not previously suggested by the critics.

It must not be supposed untenable to deal numerically with limited facets of Baudelaire’s thinking, by a method unknown in detail by the author. The aim here is not to achieve a communion in spirit with the poet, but only to obtain a very limited description of certain aspects of the text. There is no need to imagine that Baudelaire manipulated the notions of arbitration, of tension or of vacillation in any way. When a grammarian speaks of suffixes in the „Iliad“, no critics will argue that at the time the epic was composed the exact notion of the suffix was not known, and that the study is of no use. Homeric poetry provides suffixes for us to examine, independent of any assumptions made by the critics about the possible recognition of them by those who created the poem.

It is evident that rb(corrupt–mind) is indeed a broad tension, but as (d) acting on (corrupt–mind) produces another broad arbitration, the tension that is set against it to describe a shocking idea can in no way have the rank 1.

Tensions of this sort lead us into the speculative zone of the most fragile arbitrations, and so b(corrupt–temple) will seem on the verge of nonsense according to one view or another, but as the critics do not have the means of showing the absurdity in this, the debate can only continue. Claude Pichois shows from a remark by Jacques Gengoux how the whole poem turns, so to say, on this axis with the opposing poles of the impressions of the sensual and of the hallowed [669]-[670].

12 Thus s(1)rb(Nature–temple) must be accepted, as also s(1)rb(observe–symbols), while s(1) will be rejected for b(observe–forests) because the significance “many” seems clear for «forests of» in the first place, and at the same time «symbols» nearer to «Which» is more easily linked to «observe» than «forests».

Although they should not be confused with each other, they can readily be seen as close, so (corrupt–mind) may possibly be part of the illusion, but we must not rule out either that Baudelaire may have thought of this. Since the transports are those of the spirit in part, and the corrupt perfumes, according to the poem, celebrate their effects, an association of origin between the ideas can be envisaged. The author was asking, as regards such emotions perhaps [9]-[664]-[718]-[781]: «…who has not known those glorious times, veritable feasts of the brain, when the heightened senses perceive more resounding sensations, when the sky of a more transparent azure sinks deep like a more infinite abyss, when sounds ring out musically, when colours speak, when perfumes tell whole worlds of ideas?»

In this way s(2.5)rb(corrompus –infinies) results, since (corrompus–infinies) is not obvious and five fronts separate the terms in question. In fact the corrupt perfumes are said to have the expansion of infinite things, but that is not sufficient to express the idea permitting (corrompus–infinies) to be certain, and finally the passage concerned can easily be written: “Il est des parfums…corrompus,/////riches (et) triomphants, Ayant (l')expansion (des) choses///// infinies…” (There are perfumes…corrupt, rich and triumphant, Having the expansion of infinite things…) which produces the 5 fronts giving the value 2.5 for (s).

The problem of the balance between the factors will also be clarified by an example. A tension such as b(répondent–chairs) (answer-flesh) does not have an obvious framework but is broad. The text sounds as follows: «…Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent.

Il est des parfums frais comme des chairs d'enfants…» (…Perfumes, colours and sounds answer each other.//There are perfumes as cool as the flesh of children…) If we had to have recourse to the number of compartments separating «répondent» and «chairs», that is 7, the disproportion would be flagrant with 2, the numerical counterpart of the rank and therefore representative of the changeable nature of the position. The fact that we can affirm or deny at will is important: such a property alone considerably weakens the significance, and the value 7 is much too high compared with the 2. On the contrary, by resorting to the use of the coefficient proposed, the balance between the factors is improved: 2.4 matches 2. If we turn now to the poem, the theme of infant skin evoked in the passage concerned reminds us of other famous lines [[1054]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1054]]: «My child, my sister,
Think how sweet
To go far away and live together…» This description from Gautier can also be quoted [405]: «…her arms were bare to the elbows, and they emerged from a cluster of lace, round, plump and white, as splendid as burnished silver and of an unimaginable delicacy of lineament…» On the other hand this soft skin is exposed to quick brutality, like that of triumph by the sword [144]: «Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men.»

The figurative significance of «répondent» (to balance, to match) makes a diversion as regards rb(répondent–parfums), and for this reason it belongs to the landing of the term for this tension.

The frequency of the contrasts in the poetry of Baudelaire has often been emphasized. Jules Lemaître wrote [98]«Yes, I believe therein lies the essential stress of Baudelairism: to constantly unite two contrary orders of feeling…» In a similar way, Léon Cellier saw in the delicate disposition of one sense with another opposite one, a whole facet of this art [182]: «…opposites, without really being reconciled, are brought together…»

From the title «Correspondances» to «répondent» for m(2)rb(répondent–couleurs) a discreet ambiguity develops in the left-hand term and the figurative significance is supported by the abstraction that the heading of the poem implies. However Baudelaire could sometimes go very far in the use of the audacious meaning presented as immediate in the eighth line [9]-[664]-[717]-[781]«It seems this colour…thinks for itself…» and still in this passage on Delacroix: «…the impression of his pictures we take away with us is often almost musical.»

The exterior remoteness is 1 only in the absence of the slightest doubt concerning such an imbrication, and thus we have c(1) for rb(living–pillars) rb(Let–pillars), as each has an obvious framework and the text expresses forcefully the union of images they describe. On the other hand, the exterior remoteness of rb(Let–Nature) and rb(Let–pillars) is in no way fixed at c(1), even if vocabulary and grammar command the concept of a "temple-Nature" with pillars that allow words to escape from them, to be perceived from the author’s point of view. It is unavoidable: since there is no obviousness in the first tension, c(1) must be rejected. As for the substance of the significances dealt with here, the theme of pillars enjoying freedom does not imply that of words being prisoners up to then. We must not exclude the fact that, according to Baudelaire, everything, words, Nature, symbols, freshness and corruption, can attempt to exercise its own force. The mind, as if relaxing, speculates here very far from the ordinary conceptions of the physicist.

Between rb(corrompus–encens) and rb(corrompus–esprit) c(1) must be excluded since the second tension has no obvious framework at all. The passage concerned can be written as follows: “Il est des parfums…corrompus, riches et triomphants, Ayant l'expansion des choses infinies, Comme l'ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l'encens,/////Qui chantent (les) transports (de) (l')/////esprit et des sens.” (There are perfumes…corrupt, rich and triumphant, Having the expansion of infinite things, Like amber, musk, benzoin and incense, Which sing of the transports of the mind and the senses.) We can count 3 fronts between «encens» and «esprit», the terms differentiating the tensions, and with therefore 2+(1(3/10)) the exterior remoteness is c(2.3).

Claude Pichois points out how Felix Leakey proposed overcoming one of the most serious difficulties of the poem, that concerning the mysterious role of the things evoked [667]: «…the "confused words" and the "familiar eyes" by which the objects of Nature propose to man their qualities as "symbols" are none other than perfumes, colours and sounds…»

As in the rest of our study, if our preoccupation with „Correspondences“ has furnished us with the means, it may also have led to our neglect of certain dispositions of ideas.

To attenuate rb(corrupt–incense) we have recourse to vb(senses– incense) vb(corrupt–senses). As the manners in which sensuality lays open to corruption are often noted, it is permissible to propose vb(corrupt–senses), and as the incense produces physical emotions, there is nothing surprising in vb(senses–incense). Since the clash of significances is then altogether more easily understood, it becomes more acceptable. To attenuate this time rb(Nature–temple), the characteristics common to nature and to many temples can be noted: space, depth, darkness, night, light, unity, sounds, echoes, colours and perfumes. Why not also amber and incense since these are natural oils used in the past for services in numerous religions? In this way the task of using various pincers for the tension concerned is not difficult: vb(Vast–temple) vb(Nature–Vast); vb(profound–temple) vb(Nature–profound); vb(dark–temple) vb(Nature–dark); vb(night–temple) vb(Nature–night); vb(light–temple) vb(Nature–light); vb(unity–temple) vb(Nature–unity); vb(sounds–temple) vb(Nature–sounds); vb(echoes–temple) vb(Nature– echoes); vb(colours–temple) vb(Nature–colours); vb(Perfumes–temple) vb(Nature–Perfumes); vb(amber– temple) vb(Nature–amber); vb(incense–temple) vb(Nature–incense). Balzac wrote [74]: «What do we give to God? perfumes, light and songs, the most refined expressions of our nature.»

„Correspondences“ does not contain any negative constructions and so the positive shunt type has been determined using the nearest thing to one in the text. The eleventh line with «others» gives us the beginning of a negation, prohibiting the affirmation that for Baudelaire freshness includes corruption [670].

As regards rb(corrupt–temple), we use vb(incense–temple), and rvb(corrupt–incense) which takes advantage of vb(senses–incense) vb(corrupt–senses), a pincer giving the benefit of its virtues indirectly, in dealing with rb(corrompus–temple). But the canvases must not be expected to occur whenever they are desirable: if an attenuation of rb(pillars–words) is sought, vb(living– words) rvb(pillars–living) is found, and this notch rvb itself has the pincer vb(forests–living) vb(pillars– forests), thanks to the image of trees that seem like living pillars, but this whole device ends in failure seeing that the distortion in significance carried out on «forests», by showing why the pillars could live in the imagination, in no way manages to deal with the problem of their words.

As far as rb(answer–Perfumes) is concerned, vb(sweet–Perfumes) vb(sweet–colours) can be put forward as an example of a shelter. One of the reasons why these various perfumes possess the faculty of responding to other objects, is that they seem able to share one quality with them: sweetness. Once the principle has been grasped, it may easily be applied elsewhere, considering other properties: vb(cool–Perfumes) vb(cool–colours); vb(corrupt– Perfumes) vb(corrupt–colours); vb(rich–Perfumes) vb(rich–colours); vb(triumphant–Perfumes) vb(triumphant–colours). Here «perfumes» is continuously the term expressed in the eighth line, even if the remainder of the poem serves as a background for it.

An attenuation of rb(observe–symbols) does not prove impossible since Baudelaire was equally aware of the warmth of physical reality and of the importance of never becoming a visionary. A levy like vb(Perfumes–symbols) rvb(Perfumes–answer) seems appropriate. The first barrier is justified because musk is taken as the symbol of sensuality for example, or the rose the representation of love; and in the case of the second, it constitutes a notch with for example as a shelter vb(Perfumes–sweet) vb(colours– sweet). The perfumes are supposed to respond so they may very well be imagined capable of observing; now, they are included in the symbols: here therefore is an attenuation of rb(observe–symbols). Balzac often played with the dizzy notions we have just evoked [87]: «There, the doctor was developing some marvellous theories about sympathies…According to him…the "spiritual" Word nourished the "animate" Word…» In another work, the same author conceived the following lines [91]: «Sound is a modification of air; all colours are modifications of light; every perfume is a combination of air and light…» And [89]: «perfumes are ideas perhaps!»

The relation of rb(corrupt–incense) to rb(corrupt–temple) can in this connection serve as an example.

Thus the vigour of rb(corrupt– incense) is able to influence the perception of rb(corrupt–temple).

Thus the influence of rb(corrupt–incense) on rb(corrupt–temple) is intuitively perceived as considerably greater than the reciprocal effect.

Let us examine what shouldering rb(corrompus–encens) provides for rb(corrompus– temple). The channel of the first collision is 1 with 1/(t(1)s(1)m(1)w(1)); t=1 because the text affirms without any hesitation that the incense is corrupt; s=1 because of the obvious framework; m=1 due to the expression «riches et triomphants», which is able to exclude that the significance “corrupt on the physical level” could allow rb(corrompus–encens) to be ignored; then w=1 since for «encens» the significance “éloges” (praise) is relegated to the distant background with the theme of the perfumes dominating the passage concerned. Between «temple» and «encens» in addition there are 64 fronts, and so the exterior remoteness is 8.4 or 2+(1(64/10))=2+6.4. In total the shouldering sought has the value of 1/8.4=0.119 even if it would be preferable to round up such a result. In another respect the reciprocal shouldering of rb(corrompus–encens) by rb(corrompus–temple) can be examined. With 1/t’s’m’w’ as the channel of this last collision we start with the values t’=2 because of the reversible position; s’=7.3 since there are 53 fronts between «temple» and «corrompus», which gives 2+(1(53/10))=2+5.3=7.3; then m’=1 similar to the m of the previous channel; and finally w’=1 for «temple» which possesses an unrivalled significance here. In this way t’s’m’w’=(2)(7.3)(1)(1) or 14.6. The channel’s value is therefore 1/14.6=0.068. Since c=8.4 the shouldering to be determined is 0.068/8.4=0.008. The divergence between the two values obtained of 0.119 and 0.008 seems proportional to what our intuition would tell us, for rb(corrompus–encens) cannot be much influenced by such an unclear collision as rb(corrompus–temple), which fits with 0.008. On the contrary rb(corrompus–temple) takes considerable advantage of rb(corrompus–encens), and a value of 0.119 nearly fifteen times greater than the above, matches well therefore with such a state of affairs.

With rb(night–light) accompanying rb(corrupt–incense), comes rb(corrupt– light). Its framework is not at all obvious, but we must not rush to deny its breadth: as night symbolizes both mystery and evil, a blinding light can represent the nobility of the spirit and also the cruelty of the blade [667]-[821].

For rb(living–pillars) rb(answer– Perfumes), the intermediaries rb(living–Perfumes) and rb(answer–pillars) are obtained. The words could spring after a time from memory’s subterranean pillars, with recollections like those Baudelaire describes elsewhere [680]: «…it is undeniable that, similar to those transitory and striking impressions, all the more striking when they return the more transitory they are, which sometimes follow an external sign, a sort of warning like a bell ringing, a musical note, or a forgotten perfume, and which in turn are followed by an event similar to one already experienced and which occupied the same place in a previously disclosed chain, -similar to those periodic strange dreams which visit our slumbers,- there exist in intoxication not only sequences of dreams, but also series of arguments, which have need, to reproduce themselves, of the environment which engendered them.» However as it remains desirable to avoid any interpretative obduracy, the columns of rock which natural activity seems to animate can also be evoked [[1144]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1144]]: «I lived for a long time under vast porticos
Tinged with a thousand fires by marine suns,
So their tall pillars, straight and majestic,
Turned them into basalt caves in the evening.

The surges, rolling images of the skies,
Mixed in solemn and mystic fashion
The all-powerful chords of their rich music
With the sunset colours glowing in my eyes.»

As the channel of rb(corrupt– incense) has itself the value of 1, let us consider the enhancement that rb(night–light) receives from it. On the one hand there is nothing tense about b(incense–night), since the places where incense is burnt for a religious service are frequently bathed in delicate obscurity, and therefore the significances of the terms in question go perfectly well with each other. On the other hand rb(corrupt–light), the only intermediary in the block, has an interior remoteness of 3.8 due to the fact that 18 fronts separate the terms, and the value sought is consequently 1/3.8=0.26.

However, we must be prepared to observe frequent inequalities in the aptitude of the various terms to form blocks or tandems. The breakdown of vocabulary into words designating the concrete and the abstract in a variable way, can usefully be questioned in this matter, and so with «corrupt» several broad tensions may be imagined, but not with «incense». Yet it would be a mistake to believe that one is more important than the other since the second term permits rb(corrupt–incense), and so it is easy to perceive how much of its power to shock, the first one would lose, if «incense» were removed.

Before limiting ourselves to a single poem, we considered using several varied pages. The restrictive references within the meaning in several of them led us to abandon this idea, and the wealth of recent annotated editions of „Correspondences“ encouraged our present choice.

As appearances arise from the significance expressed by a text, it seems justifiable to undertake a series of examinations of the manner in which they fit together, and various aspects of „Correspondences“ could provide us with the opportunity for this type of study: those which enable the collisions to occur first of all.

Thus we will have at once, through rb[pillars–words], two very distinct collisions, one describing the premier text, the second arising for example from an imitation in which «words» and «symbols» are inverted, with the result that all the values, t, s, m, w in particular, may be different. Such a tracing could begin: “Nature is a temple where living pillars let forth at times confused symbols; there man passes through forests of words which observe him with familiar eyes.”

How, for example, can the intuitive power of rb(corrupt–incense) be compared with that of rb(Nature–temple)?

We kept the N of “Nature” for the tracing in the same way as those who for a long time have been modifying classical work for pedagogical ends: they do not deviate from the original unless they have to.

For those who followed our reasoning in the enumeration of the fronts, the inclusion of the “l'” and the “se”s for “l'observent”, “se confondent” and “se répondent” could seem to be unjustified seeing that we write simultaneously rb(répondent–parfums¹) and not rb(se.répondent–parfums¹) for a broad tension. However, regarding the definition of the fronts, this is not contradictory since although the broad tension terms automatically constitute fronts, all the fronts do not necessarily have to figure in a broad tension.

As for the idea of those subtle figures that skilful craftsmen carved on the pillars of cathedrals, if it serves the meditation on the poem, it remains permissible to evoke, as a rival or a sister, the image of those organ pipes which let forth at times sounds resembling human voices singing. Either one of these comparisons cannot expel the other from the mind for long, and so Michel Quesnel emphasises that they go side-by-side [819]. Balzac was inspired by a related theme [80]: «Soon every stone was vibrating in the church, but without changing places. The organ spoke, and let me hear a divine harmony…» This animation of what is solid calls to mind other equally strange things. These lines by the same author are found elsewhere [65]: «The organ is certainly the greatest, the most audacious, the most magnificent of all the instruments man’s genius has created…All those holy riches seemed thrown down like a grain of incense…» Through an artifice the mind succeeds in finding the powerful charm of a melody present in things at the highest level. For everything in the world "regards" man perhaps! In particular certain personalities for the novelist are in tune with the absolute [94]-[667]«…as a touch on an organ fills a church with its lowing and reveals the musical universe by bathing in its deep sounds the most inaccessible vaults, by playing about, like light, in the most delicate flowers of the capitals…»

To approach it, we can remark on the diversity of the moral nature of the objects evoked. Since man is at times gentle, at times triumphant, it is possible for him to be seen as the brother or the lover of the coloured, perfumed or sonorous things. In this case men and symbols, mirrors one of the other, should be seen as sending back to each other their own evidence of divinity. What does one observe unceasingly with familiar looks but that which one loves?

Their proximity in no way goes as far as to give a rank of 1 for rb[répondent–piliers] even if the two terms are related in the imitation, since the conjunction “Comme” (Like, As) expresses the idea of comparison and not of identification.

However there is a weakness in our argument due to the fact that for „Correspondences“ we have no example of a collision with s(2), no more, no less, for when the poem provides the opportunity of seeing collisions with unobvious frameworks, fronts always separate the terms. On the contrary s’(2)rb(answer–freshness) for example could occur with in place of the eighth and ninth lines: “…perfumes, colours and sounds answer each other./////(The)/////freshness and the sweetness of certain perfumes can be compared with that of children’s flesh…” In this instance s’(2)rb(answer–freshness) would be justified for a situation with a framework (answer–freshness) which is in no way obvious and at the same time a word between “answer” and “freshness” that cannot be called a front.

As for the deeper significance of the poem regarding such strange views, it is a nuisance that the perspective of the corrupt "temple-Nature" cannot be avoided, but how else can the author’s thinking be conceived when the notion of unity plays such an important role in it? He wrote [677]: «Unity of the animal, unity of fluid, unity of the original matter…The idea of unity also haunted Edgar Allan Poe, and he devoted no less effort than Balzac to this cherished dream. It is certain that these particularly literary minds, once they set about it, ride through philosophy in a remarkable way. They make sudden incursions and abrupt escapades along roads peculiarly their own.»

There is equally nothing surprising in the fact that within the network belonging to rb(night–light) everything coming from rb(corrupt–incense) should have considerable weight, and the impression given by an incomplete reading of the poem supports such a view. The sixth and seventh lines which evoke night and light give a very moderate clash between the significances resulting from them, since we first pay attention only to their complementarity, seeing just at the end of the poem how much meaning the opposition of the two also could have here for the author [669]. He seems to perceive night and day like Heine, and he quotes him in these words [431]-[694]: «As regards art, I am a "supernaturalist". I believe that the artist cannot find all his types in nature, but that the most remarkable ones are revealed to him by his soul, like innate symbols of innate ideas, and instantly.» Then concerning architecture: «… attempts have been made to rediscover the types afterwards in the foliage of forests, in the caves…these types were not in external nature, but well and truly in the human soul.»

Yet it can be perceived that if the sentence in the imitation had not been cut, a second change, regarding the link between “let” and “pillars” this time, would have been produced unintentionally. It was necessary to maintain the affirmation in order to preserve the rank 1 for the collision enjoying the shouldering: rb[pillars–let].

The case is clearly shown here with “corrupt” present twice, which has inevitable consequences, once its ambiguity is increased, for the two parts constituting the tandem; thus rb(corrupt–temple) in the assimilation possesses a more modest shouldering as well as a channel lesser than that of the collision facing it. As for the nature of this corruption, it is not without some height, according to the terms in the vicinity of «corrupt»: «triumphant», «infinite», «incense», in particular. From the noble to the base, at times the transition is very rapid, and Baudelaire shows he is acutely aware of this when he finds himself imagining his partner declaring [[1006]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1006]]: «…I want to make myself drunk with nard, with incense, with myrrh…» Lamartine, who the author appreciated only to a limited extent, had also emphasized, while thinking of fatal and deadly characters, that nothing can save the sacred from ungodly usage [494]-[629]: «…the sun’s fires, whose liquid flames
From the veins of the poppy flow into the dittany,
Mixed in their potions with tears of incense,
With an eternal intoxication set alight their senses.» Baudelaire, dreaming of himself as a king, suggests that the soul, not the concrete, conceals in its depths the basis of our failings [[1119]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1119]]: «The scholar who makes gold for him has never been able
To eradicate from his being the corrupted element…»

Here rb[Let–pillars] conserves in the assimilation the enhancement it enjoys in the socket, and this value even increases its relative importance within the network since the channel of the collision concerned is reduced. As for those thoughts regarding apparently passive beings, but according to certain impressions, endowed with a hidden will, the environment contributes greatly to them. Balzac describes one which is propitious for grandiose reverie, in these lines [79]: «The dessert wines brought their perfumes and their flames, powerful philtres, bewitching vapours which engender a sort of intellectual mirage…» However such agents do not seem necessary to the novelist or certain of his characters [88]: «…I turn in on myself, and I find a dark room where the accidents of nature recur in a more pure form than the form in which they first appeared to my external senses.» Thus, perhaps in the same way as the religious faithful flock to the temple, the colours, perfumes and sounds, filled with serene life, sing in the heart of nature, for the enraptured spirit. «The earth quivered with a prophetic breath…» wrote Nerval [550].

Anyone who considers collisions such as rb(corrupt–incense) and rb(living–pillars) as of no great interest, but who has knowledge of the audience of the text, will not claim that they are weak. Conversely even if a collision such as rb(corrupt–light) seems captivating, it can still not be claimed that it was easy to perceive at the moment the poem was published.

„Correspondences“ suggests so many images that only limited aspects of them can be described.

The delicate nature of the intuitions invoked by the author as regards the perfumes and their imagined responses, that is all that renders the analysis of the collisions rather rash, suggests these other verses [[1057]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1057]]: «The rarest flowers
Mingling their scents
With vague fragrances of amber,
The rich ceilings,
The deep mirrors,
The eastern splendour,
Everything would speak
To our souls in secret
In their sweet native tongue.»

If the poem „Correspondences“ remains intact and unique, because it is original, the number of attempts to obtain such and such a modification of it are limitless.

The assistance given to rb[observent–symboles] by rb[Laissent–piliers] is lessened since the intermediary in question remains identical. Now, concerning the essence of the symbols, these pillars of reality, or of the thought which illuminates things, let us read Balzac [89]: «Ideas in us are a complete system, similar to one of the kingdoms of nature, a sort of flowering whose iconography will be described…»

The above version could be completed as follows: “…les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent-ils de leurs voix confuses?” (…do Perfumes, colours and sounds answer each other in their confused voices?) Avoiding in this way a certain clumsiness, the changed place of the word “confuses” would lead to a modification all the more limited in that the significance fits consistently with the general tone of the text dominated by «comme» (as) [669]. The fusion of conflicting feelings is almost achieved when we experience nature’s freshness and corruption in mingled impressions. In certain moments above all [[1125]] in Index II (Poems)">[[1125]]: «When sombre Venus, from the height of the black balconies,
Pours down streams of musk from her fresh censers.» In such a case the serious is combined with the light in appearances and ideas and so it is stimulating to observe that the expression «…the transports of the mind and the senses.» has almost the same movement as the title of a novel by Crébillon junior: «the Aberrations of the heart and the mind» [220].

To establish and then discuss the general sum of the shoulderings and channels for rb[corrompus–encens] and rb[corrompus–temple] by taking all the principle collisions available into consideration, would present some difficulties due to the abundance of impressions and of numerical values which would need to be studied without confusion.

As for the responses between the elements of beauty, André Ferran strongly emphasized the theme of the suffering engendered or undergone by colour [181]-[395]. Baudelaire, when comparing Delacroix and Catlin, the painter of American Indians, called to mind the groans or the terror that an expert colourist can reproduce, and following up his idea, noted [16]-[693]: «I had for a long time before my window a tavern half in crude green and half in garish red, and those colours were a delicious pain for my eyes.»