Baudelaire et le portrait en vers

This study focuses on two kinds of portraits in verse by Baudelaire: “À une mendiante rousse” and “Les Phares”. It aims to prove the existence of two different techniques of portraying inside the Fleurs du mal: a Portrait of a young woman still linked to the tradition of verbal portrait, in which hair is first mentioned, and eight highly enigmatic portraits of artists, which can be said médaillons because of their length coinciding with the stanza. The poem “À une mendiante rousse”, also seen in its genetic transformations, can be regarded as a portrait starting from the moment it becomes one of the “Tableaux parisiens” (1861). With reference to the poem “Les Phares”, it must be said that it was first considered as a series of Portraits de peintres by young Marcel Proust.