Enclosure for Escape: Baudelaire’s Claustrophilia in “La Chevelure”

Abstract:This article offers a close reading of Charles Baudelaire’s poem “La Chevelure” (Les Fleurs du Mal, 1857) through the lens of spatial enclosure. I contend that claustrophilia—a desire for confinement—finds expression in “La Chevelure” due to a constellation of structural, thematic, and phonetic elements, which subsequently forge a generative space for poetic creation. The operation of claustrophilia in this example reveals that, paradoxically, it is through captivity that escape becomes possible. This finding illuminates the spatial dimension of Baudelaire’s poetry, a compelling aspect that has been obscured by a scholarly preoccupation with time in his œuvre