From the book
Intimate Journals
Charles Baudelaire · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordMalentendu is not only a failure interrupting communication; in Mon cœur mis à nu LXXVII and XCIX2 it becomes the condition that makes apparent agreement possible.
- In Intimate JournalsMon cœur mis à nu LXXVII gives an erotic miniature.
- In this editionThe edition's ‘cordial understanding’ answers ‘misunderstanding’, while ‘in unison’ keeps the sound of de concert.
- A place to readl’entente cordiale est le résultat d’un malentendu.
Meaning
Malentendu is not only a failure interrupting communication; in Mon cœur mis à nu LXXVII and XCIX2 it becomes the condition that makes apparent agreement possible. People can act together because each supplies a different meaning to the shared scene. The notebook reverses the usual assumption that understanding necessarily reconciles.
Incommunicabilité is figured as an unbridgeable gulf. The spatial language emphasizes a distance that mutual excitement has not actually crossed.
Use in the book
Mon cœur mis à nu LXXVII gives an erotic miniature. The lovers' different cries accompany a shared pleasure that persuades them they think in unison. The scene's gender caricature belongs to Baudelaire's construction; it is not empirical evidence about how men and women experience intimacy. Its central device is the discrepancy between apparent accord and unlike inward addresses.
Mon cœur mis à nu XCIX generalizes the paradox to the world. Perfect understanding would destroy agreement, it claims. The universal wording is an aphoristic provocation rather than a demonstrated sociology. Its sequel tells the person of wit to extract bitter enjoyment from foolish conversation and bad books, making failed communion into an aesthetic resource.
Mon cœur mis à nu XLVII's projected history of Les Fleurs du Mal names humiliation through misunderstanding and the trial. There the gap is costly, not merely entertaining. The three loci keep distinct the pleasure that masks difference, the irony that survives it, and the public harm it can cause. The desire to share memories in Mon cœur mis à nu CXVI consequently remains difficult without being declared meaningless.
Places to read
- Mon cœur mis à nu LXXVIIl’entente cordiale est le résultat d’un malentendu. — Agreement is presented as an effect of incompatible meanings.
- Mon cœur mis à nu LXXVIILe gouffre infranchissable — The apparent union has not eliminated distance.
- Mon cœur mis à nu XCIXC’est par le malentendu universel que tout le monde s’accorde. — The erotic paradox is extended to collective life.
- Mon cœur mis à nu XLVIIHumiliation par le malentendu, et mon procès. — Misreading also has concrete personal and public consequences.
Translation in this edition
The edition's ‘cordial understanding’ answers ‘misunderstanding’, while ‘in unison’ keeps the sound of de concert. ‘Unbridgeable’ and ‘unbridged’ preserve the final lexical repetition instead of explaining it away. Note 71 correctly declines to invent a particular diplomatic allusion from entente cordiale alone.