Baudelaire, "disciple" of Edgar Allan Poe

Everybody agrees in seeing in Baudelaire the major medium between Poe and, not only France, but also the whole of continental Europe. We easily perceive what Pos owes to the author of the Fleurs du Mal. But a more important question that has to find its answer is the opposite one: what does Baudelaire owe to Poe? Is criticism entitled to see the latter as the master and the former as the disciple? Numerous specialists have asserted that Baudelaire had wanted to be the French Edgar Poe and acknowledged in the American writer a sort of duplicate. Poe has also been made Baudelaire's master when Platonism is concerned. This article aims at shading such assertions, which can be accused of rubbing out the fundamental differences between Baudelaire's work and Poe's.