SOURCE: "The Architecture of Meaning: Gautier and Romantic Architectural Visions," in French Forum, Vol. 7, No. 2, May, 1982, pp. 109-116.

In the following essay, Burnett discusses the evolving role of the poem-as-architecture in Gautier's La comédie de la mort

In 1838 Théophile Gautier published a collection of poetry entitled La Comédie de la mort. The volume opens with the poem "Portail" and closes with "Le Sommet de la tour." In both works the poet casts himself in the role of architect, laboriously erecting a gothic cathedral from crypt to pinnacles. His verses are the building blocks to which he gives the charge:

 En funèbres caveaux creusez-vous, ô mes vers!
…. .
Puis montez hardiment comme les cathédrales,
Allongez-vous en tours, tordez-vous en spirales. 

While these sometimes tortuous metaphorical efforts occasionally make tedious reading, they do reveal the problematics of poetry as architecture. The poet's verses have both function and...