Le sacré de l’alchimie poétique dans Les Fleurs du mal de Baudelaire
The sacredness of poetic alchemy in Les Fleurs du mal by Baudelaire

Summary/Abstract: In this article, we attempt to shed light on Baudelaire’s poetic alchemy in his masterpiece “Les Fleurs du mal”, and also on the technique by which this poet-chemist succeeds in transforming the science of alchemy into an aesthetic phenomenon that has remained immortal for centuries. First of all, alchemy, now known as chemistry, is a technico-practical science that revolves around the transformation of base elements into noble metals. Later, this science successfully entered other fields of knowledge such as astronomy, philosophy, literature and even medicine, thanks to its theoretical-mystical nature. Nevertheless, alchemy assumes that mediocre materials, such as iron, are originally expensive elements, like gold, but need to be transformed several times in order to achieve nobility. The author of “Les Fleurs” was undoubtedly among the first to consider this alchemical process as a new resource for inspiration, and as a very fertile field from which he could profit in the course of his literary productions. He asserts that the poem can illustrate a dark truth which, in turn, transcends several phases of transformation from impure to pure and from material to spiritual, striving to achieve the perfection, mutation and nobility to which the Romantic author of “Les Fleurs” aspires through his literary corpus. Such a conception being as much aesthetic as philosophical, Baudelaire succeeded in establishing a language rich in expressions, colors and images, so that he could remove the sacred from language and create a poetry eternally engraved on the brains of those who heard it.

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