Gautier / Baudelaire: homo ludens versus homo duplex

The common notion that Théophile Gautier's writings are somehow those of a failed Baudelaire ignores the essential differences that are inherent in the contrasting constructs of homo ludens (Gautier) and homo duplex (Baudelaire). Unlike Baudelaire, Gautier, as scriptor ludens, elaborates from a very early date a sustained and demanding chain of intertextual literary ludics that require the complicity of lector ludens, a very special reader who has finally come of age in our day. (FGH)