From the book
Intimate Journals
Charles Baudelaire · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordObscenity works through bodily vocabulary, aggressive social distinction, and sudden collisions with spiritual language.
- In Intimate JournalsMon cœur mis à nu XXVII's reduced sexual verb belongs to the attack on woman as appetite.
- In this editionAngle brackets in the English—such as ⟨gets hard⟩, ⟨To fuck⟩, and ⟨fucked⟩—mark restorations made with the comparison transcription.
- A place to readLa brute seule b..de bien et la fouterie est le lyrisme du peuple.
Meaning
Obscenity works through bodily vocabulary, aggressive social distinction, and sudden collisions with spiritual language. In this edition it also has a material history: some sexual words appear abbreviated in the governing French print while others remain complete. The pattern is not a consistent authorial code whose omissions can simply be ignored.
The distinction between a word printed in full and a restored abbreviation matters because the reader must know which language is present in the witness and which has been supplied editorially.
Use in the book
Mon cœur mis à nu XXVII's reduced sexual verb belongs to the attack on woman as appetite. Mon cœur mis à nu XCIII uses abbreviated verbs around a claim that artistic cultivation diminishes sexual potency, but prints fouterie without abbreviation. These forms participate in an antithesis between mind and brute that is itself polemical, gendered, and classed. They are not physiological findings.
Mon cœur mis à nu CVIII is different in authorship and form. Baudelaire copies a sonnet to be cited in Mon cœur mis à nu, then records uncertainty over whether it is by Maynard or Théophile. It is not his own poem. Its dead lover returns as a seductive shade; the turn from body to soul gives the final obscene boast a metaphysical sting.
The cloud embraced like Ixion and the naked shade create a verbal play on nue. Bodily absence does not prevent erotic fantasy from claiming possession. The poem thus resonates with the notebook's interest in mistaken idols, imagined union, and the gulf between persons, while its uncertain attribution remains a separate textual problem.
Places to read
- Mon cœur mis à nu XCIIILa brute seule b..de bien et la fouterie est le lyrisme du peuple. — Abbreviated and unabbreviated sexual language coexist in one sentence.
- Mon cœur mis à nu CVIIISonnet à citer dans Mon cœur mis à nu. — The poem is material chosen for quotation.
- Mon cœur mis à nu CVIIIEt que, comme Ixion, j’embrassasse une nue. — The myth and cloud introduce deceptive embodiment.
- Mon cœur mis à nu CVIIIJe crois que ce sonnet est de Maynard. — The notebook itself records attribution as uncertain.
Translation in this edition
Angle brackets in the English—such as ⟨gets hard⟩, ⟨To fuck⟩, and ⟨fucked⟩—mark restorations made with the comparison transcription. French abbreviations remain as printed. Notes 85 and 962 disclose the procedure, while note 97 explains nue as cloud versus naked. The edition follows Maynard/Théophile in its governing witness and does not silently replace Théophile with Racan from the comparison.