Equivalents – Melancholy and Ecstasy in “Enivrez-vous” by Charles Baudelaire and “Vinho” by Cecília Meireles

Abstract

The Cecilian poetic persona, as well as the Baudelairean, enters a state of ecstasy as it expands its creative capacity. External data are at the service of inventiveness, since they are captured by the look of who deciphers and creates – the artist. The repudiation of the limiting and common vision and the presence of melancholy as a response to the reality devoid of any inspiration are common to both poems: “Vinho” and “Enivrez-vous” – respectively found in Viagem (1939) and Spleen de Paris (1869). The ecstasy is stimulated by a device: in the poems, wine introduces a natural and transfiguring apprehension of things. Under the influence of alcohol, the Cecilian and the Baudelairean poetic personas surrender to ruminations which reveal the complex nature of their individuality, which is crushed by melancholy and by the baffling concern over their existence. In proportion to their idiosyncrasies, both poetic personas develop deep reflections about time and existential questions and celebrate when having wine, a kind of paradoxical desperate lucidity. So as not to become “the martyred slaves of Time” (BAUDELAIRE, p. 128), the Baudelairean poetic persona suggests surrendering to the state of drunkenness, and the Cecilian poetic persona acquiesces in this advice by showing compliance with various psychic and soul conditions that the poetic ecstasy fuels.