SOURCE: "The Two Versions of Les Fleurs du Mal and Ideas of Form," in The Ladder of High Designs: Structure and Interpretation to the French Lyric Sequence, edited by Doranne Fenoaltea and David Lee Rubin, University Press of Virginia, 1991, pp. 100-37.

In the following essay, Houston examines the structural differences between the 1857 and the 1861 versions of Les Fleurs du Mal.

In 1857, upon the publication of the first edition, Barbey d'Aurevilly made his well-known reference to the "architecture secrète" of Les Fleurs du mal, and the phrase is often quoted, although it patently contains false associations. To begin with the adjective secrète, architecture is the most overt of arts; moreover, it is one that shows a pronounced fondness for symmetry, whether exemplified by a Gothic cathedral or a classical temple, the two architectural forms most likely to have occurred to a reader in Barbey's day. Symmetry, however...