From the self to the world

the externalizing function of the landscape gaze in Baudelaire and Drummond

Abstract

In this article, we demonstrate the function of exteriority to lyrical self-absorption played by landscape perception in the poems "O Confiteor do artista” and "Noturno à janela do apartamento," by Baudelaire and Drummond, respectively. Our hypothesis is that the scopic drive, in these texts, is constructed as a strategy of symbolization and openness to otherness. To this end, we draw on Michel Collot (2004, 2013) and Marilena Chauí (2002). The former, for the conception of landscape as a "phenomenon" that presupposes a gaze focused on the displacement of the self outside of itself; the latter, for the approach of vision as an ambiguous experience dependent on individuality and mundane objects. These formulations guide the comparative analysis of the poems, in which the gaze appears as a point of mediation between interior and exterior, subject and world, inherent meaning and historical referentiality.