Baudelaire's `Hymne à la beauté'

Baudelaire's "Hymne à la beauté" with its three intertwining themes (the exaltation of beauty, the satanic and/or divine origin of beauty, and the effect of beauty) reveals certain philosophical and aesthetic beliefs of the author: beauty has the power of opening the door of the infinite; man is moved by two simultaneous impulses, the one toward God, the other toward Satan; art, of which beauty is the goal, reflects the duality of man; art is a purifying agent capable of transforming horror and even evil into beauty; beauty arouses either the divine or satanic side of man's dual nature. (LBH)