languishing over the impossibility of escape. This tension becomes, as we shall later see, a defining feature of Baudelaire’s “ennui.” The final verses of mark the turn of the sonnet and perhaps the most “Correspondences” significant instance of irony in the poem. In it, natural and artificial modalities of sublime experience become obscured to such a degree that nature ceases to be a subject of the poem, and instead recedes into a mere allegorical object. The passage reads: Odours there are, fresh as a baby’s skin, Mellow as oboes, green as meadow grass, corrupted, rich, triumphant, full —Others Having dimensions infinitely vast, Frankincense, musk, ambergris, benjamin, Singing the senses’ rapture, and the soul’s. (9-14) The trope of synaesthesia is continued in the first two verses, with Baudelaire’s preferred sense of odour evoking the freshness of baby’s skin” (9), the mellowness of and the green “a “oboes,” color of grass” (10). However, the jarring use of the horizontal bar in line 11 signals “meadow odors of a different variety, ones that are both and These odors, “corrupted” “triumphant.” musk, ambergris, [and] benjamin” (12) are all ingredients used in medicine, “Frankincense, leading a number of scholars to read this as Baudelaire’s advocation of drug-induced alternate states of consciousness (Schlossman). Interestingly, the odors of nature correspond to definitive sensory experiences—sight, touch, taste—but do not transcend into the numinous or sublime experience that, in Romantic poetry, occurs when one encounters nature. Bersani importantly notes that, in contrast, the odors of the stimulants don't evoke any concrete sensory experience, but rather and they they become things’ (beyond the senses) “they ‘expand’ ‘transport,’ ‘infinite
languishing over the impossibility of escape. This tension becomes, as we shall later see, a defining feature of Baudelaire’s “ennui.” The final verses of “Correspondences” mark the turn of the sonnet and perhaps the most significant instance of irony in the poem. In it, natural and artificial modalities of sublime experience become obscured to such a degree that nature ceases to be a subject of the poem, and instead recedes into a mere allegorical object. The passage reads: Odours there are, fresh as a baby’s skin, Mellow as oboes, green as meadow grass, —Others corrupted, rich, triumphant, full Having dimensions infinitely vast, Frankincense, musk, ambergris, benjamin, Singing the senses’ rapture, and the soul’s. (9-14) The trope of synaesthesia is continued in the first two verses, with Baudelaire’s preferred sense of odour evoking the freshness of “a baby’s skin” (9), the mellowness of “oboes,” and the green color of “meadow grass” (10). However, the jarring use of the horizontal bar in line 11 signals odors of a different variety, ones that are both “corrupted” and “triumphant.” These odors, “Frankincense, musk, ambergris, [and] benjamin” (12) are all ingredients used in medicine, leading a number of scholars to read this as Baudelaire’s advocation of drug-induced alternate states of consciousness (Schlossman). Interestingly, the odors of nature correspond to definitive sensory experiences—sight, touch, taste—but do not transcend into the numinous or sublime experience that, in Romantic poetry, occurs when one encounters nature. Bersani importantly notes that, in contrast, the odors of the stimulants don't evoke any concrete sensory experience, but rather “they ‘expand’ and they ‘transport,’ they become ‘infinite things’ (beyond the senses)
meringolo_thesis.docx