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The lyrical work of Charles Baudelaire not only marks a turning-point in the development of nineteenth-century French poetry, but is of far deeper significance. The notion has become widely accepted among the front rank of writers and critics of verse that Baudelaire, if not the 'original begetter' of modern poetry as such, at least gave the original impetus to the lyrical poetry of our own time within the European cultural sphere.
In the course of a detailed psycho-analytical study of Baudelaire's life and work, I became involved also with that curious and brilliant constellation of poets who—in Verlaine's phrase—are generally and collectively known as les poètes maudits. Deriving from Baudelaire, these poets further explored the various avenues first opened by the former; their work and his, linked together by remarkable logic, must be viewed as a whole. This direct progeny of Baudelaire, I believe, includes Verlaine, Rimbaud, Lautréamont, and Mallarmé, and is concluded in a remarkable fashion by Jarry.
In this paper I wish to present certain conclusions in the light of the extent to which the mechanisms of regression play a part in the work of the members of this group and in the development for which they stand. An introductory reference, as concise as may be, to some artistic and more particularly literary ideas basic to my work, will be inevitable. While no specific reference is made to the psycho-analytical literature used, I should like to express special indebtedness to the writings of Bernfeld, Bonaparte, Brill, Anna Freud, Mette and Sachs.
The artist is here defined as an individual who—subject to powerful fixations on pregenital levels—has on the whole failed to move beyond puberty and remains locked in the world of phantasies devolving on the undissolved Oedipus complex. In consequence of his intensified (though very happily tempered) narcissism he is able, by means of the outward projection of these phantasies, to create some sort of 'also-objects';