Le Chat (XXXIV) / Kedi

Abstract

This article examines the first of three works entitled 'Le Chat' by Baudelaire, who was already called the 'poet of cats' by Champfieury in 1853. .After having glorified his cat, with eyes a mixture of metal and agate, the poet sees rising under his continuous caresses, the image of 'his wife'. Jeanne Duval, his 'black Venus'. He becomes inebriated with pleasure as his hands caress the 'head', the 'flexible back' and palpate 'the electric body'. The resemblance to his wife is striking even more than the 'profound and cold' gaze of the cat, which substitutes itself for his wife and from whose 'brown body' a 'dangerous pexfume' evaporates.