Baudelaire's Correspondences - a Brief Explication

In Charles Baudelaire's 'Correspondences', with direct reference in the title to the Swedenborgian concept, he reveals the connection between Nature and the Metaphysical world. Synathesia is said to "put the reader in contact with a forceful sensory presence, a primitive wholeness or synthesis of impression" (Hassan, 439). Through synathesia - in which sounds, colors, and scents are tied together to create mental images, where all senses are stimulated through the mind's eye Baudelaire transfers a dramatic French Symbolist impression of Art and Nature onto the reader.

In the lines 'corrupted, rich, triumphant, full', 'perfumes, colours, sound' and 'Frankincense, musk, ambergris, Benjamin' Baudelaire uses the rhetorical device asyndeton for dramatic effect; it represents the infinite list of sensory experiences that one can relate to. These lists that can go on and on are metaphorical for the connection of the senses to one's Self. These lines are also an example parallelism, in which all words are related to the poem's meaning as a whole, and the symbolism behind it; besides the parallelism these are also an amplification of the main concept of the poem - sensory experience connected to metaphysical importance. Hypozeugma is seen in the line with 'perfumes, colours, sounds' - all correspond with each other and are developed throughout the poem with interrelated examples.