Figures, Desire, Drift Eros and Poetics in "Sed non satiata" by Charles Baudelaire

Abstract

This paper proposes a close reading of the sonnet “Sed non satiata” from Les Fleurs du Mal. It aims at showing how, in this text, the figure of erotic insatiation constitutes both the condition and the effect of lyrical speech. This is demonstrated by pointing out an isomorphism between the figure of an insatiable desire and the Baudelairian handling of the poetic forms of allegory and metaphorical designation. Confusion and drift then appear to be the main characteristics of an indissociably poetic (discursive) and amorous (relational and embodied) experience that leads not so much to fusion (of the subject and the object of desire, of the text and its referents), as to semantic and ontological wandering.