Baudelaire et le fouriérisme

Abstract

Claude Pichois claims that Baudelaire’s debt towards Fourier is limited to the notion of universal analogy. There is, however, another aspect of Fourier’s thought, one that had a profound impact on Les Fleurs du mal: the denunciation of universal evil. In this respect, the poet draws on Fourierist vocabulary to express his own vision of the world. This article provides examples of lexical borrowings by the poet who, disillusioned by the failure of the dreams of the Fourierist school, uses the word sin to stigmatize “the reign of evil” under which, according to Fourier, his contemporaries were living.