Ślady Swedenborga w twórczości Baudelaire’a i Balzaca

The paper is concerned with several ideas contained in the writings of the 19th century French Symbolists. The author argues that the poetry of Charles Baudelaire and the prose of Honoré de Balzac bear the hallmarks of some notions originated in the thought of Swedish hermetic philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg. The analysis focuses on three main topics, namely, the myth of the Androgyne, the concept of the Cosmic Man and the correspondence principle, to which Maeterlinck adheres in his critical writings and similarly Baudelaire in his poems as well as Balzac in his novels.