Wonn, Charles S.

The state of liminality, as defined by Mihai Spariosu and exemplified by Wallace Stevens and Charles Baudelaire, is a significant one, transitional in its "structure," and one in which a vital activity takes place. Namely, this activity is the moving between worlds, states, or perceptions, and the choice of new ones, or of considering new potentialities. Essentially, this idea of being in limbo and the result of this state of "in-betweenness" is that we emerge from a relatively indeterminate, contemplative, and subjective space with an ultimate satisfaction or heightened or altered awareness. Much of Stevens's poetry, especially his later poetry, exemplifies a meditative contemplation of being, while Baudelaire's poetry portrays the liminally sublime, ghostly being in a transitional urban world. Both poets demonstrate such concepts of transition and ultimate coping in a modern state of flux.