The Transcendent Function at Work in Les Fleurs du mal

The life and work of Charles Baudelaire, which prefigured the birth of psychoanalysis, reflect a problematic frequently met today. The absence of symbolic sociocultural and familial structures is embodied initially by compulsive, self-destructive behaviors reinforced by an « ideal » spirituality, excessively abstract and guilt-inducing.The « withdrawal » to the vital forces of the Unconscious, in this instance thanks to poetry, led Baudelaire to the inner encounter, by which opposites are reconciled, with a symbolic function able to bring about a partial re-balancing of the personality through the perception of sparks of meaning : the « Flowers » of the evil, even while he was afflicted with an incurable disease, syphilis, of which he was to die at an early age.