"La Basilique" de Theophile Gautier, un voyage psychologique et esthetique

This early poem in Poésies de 1830 relates from a Jungian perspective the poet's inner voyage from the periphery of life toward his center in a failed attempt at individuation but in an esthetic success. "La Basilique" bridges Romanticism and Parnasse. Ambivalence between the two correlates with the opposition between the masculine and the feminine which, expressed geometrically and materially, never stabilizes. Exit of spirit through "la grande tour" expresses the failed contact with the poet's center, and this failure can also be explained alchemically through the symbol of the poet as "vessel." The anguish of failure is counterbalanced by the hopeful symbolism of "le lierre." Renewed contact with repressed feelings achieves expression through the nascent consciousness of a new esthetic. (In French) (JFH)