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Before this little French fils snaps, I wonder if anyone out there has any information or informed speculation about the nature of the corpse in Baudelaire`s "Une Charogne"..? I have read critics who assume that it is a human corpse, and those who have assumed it is an animal corpse (one even assumes, without mustering any evidence, that it is the corpse of a horse); there are extant doodles by the young and sadistic Cezanne which illustrate the poem and the corpse is certainly a human being, probably a woman, given the kind of stuff he was churning out at the time. But I have never read a critic who has actually addressed the issues involved in any identification of the corpse, no-one, as far as I know has proferred reasons for thinking it is one thing or another. Not much to go on in the poem either: the corpse`s legs are said to be awkwardly akimbo, "comme une femme lubrique" - which seems to have guided Cezanne`s pencil even as it probably rules out the possibility that it is a woman. Any reflections would be gratefully recieved. all best robin %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%