Baudelaire in the Circle of Exiles: A Study of `Le Cygne'

This article explores the nature of Baudelaire's allegory in "Le Cygne." The cognitive view adopted here makes a distinction between a loss as existential emptiness and the report of a loss, which can become a plenitude of images. A comparison with Saint Amant's "Les Visions" shows that allegory begins in the heart of reality. "Le Cygne" appears at the crossroads of exile and the memory of a past state of grace. The main figures are Baudelaire's spiritual brothers and sisters engaged in a ritual to consecrate the values of memory and myth and the poem is the poet's attempt to join this aristocracy of sorrow and to define his identity. (NB)