[Both "Le Balcon," a poem by Baudelaire, and Genet's play, Le Balcon,] contain forceful yet subtle images of sensuality and sexuality, presented in climactic terms and serving to express a transcendence of reality. This dramatic process is furthermore presented in both works on a backdrop of nocturnal obscurity. The complex mysteries and depths of space, present throughout the two works, create a tension between the worlds beyond and within the physical barrier of the balcony…. [Both] worlds are evoked in highly sensual and strangely similar terms and … both works present similar expressions of temporal and spatial movement…. (p. 331)
First impressions of the two works are obviously very different: generally sensual recollection of an individual woman as opposed to a blatantly sexual description of "perverted," impersonal acts; a warm and open evening atmosphere as opposed to an artificial and hermetic setting; a tone of tenderness and nostalgia as opposed to one of cruelty, eroticism and coldness. Although a balcony may be posed in the setting of both works, in Baudelaire's poem it would seem to open onto the "real" world seemingly denied by Genet's characters. Women may play a role in both works, but does any relationship exist between the seemingly cherished individual the poet recalls from his past and the paid strangers with whom Genet's clients play out their sexual fantasies in the present? (p. 332)
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