Curiosités Esthétiques: Baudelaire on Baudelaire’s Poetry
Lon Clay Hill, Jr.
[Initial Post, 15 August 2019]
Longer Title: Baudelaire the Critic on Baudelaire’s Poetry — Precise Adumbrations and Accompanying Obfuscations
“He that isn’t busy being born is busy dying” — Bob Dylan
Abstract:
In 1869 the
Curiosités Esthétiques, edited by Théophile Gautier, contained eight essays about aesthetic thematics written by Charles Baudelaire. We explore these essays here [using both the French Text and the English Translations provided by Fowlie (1964)]. In addition to the superb merit of these essays as aesthetic criticism — attended by brief but surprisingly sophisticated philosophical remarks — we also view them as quite revealing of the aesthetic criteria which Baudelaire himself aspired to and utilized as a poet. We further note, however, that Baudelaire’s actual poems are at sometimes inconsistent with and, even, markedly inferior to the simultaneously precise, passionate, and unusually catholic
Weltanschauung (philosophical perspective) of the essays.
Baudelaire Mini-Series. This essay is the 2nd of several planned essays that explain why Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) is believed by many to be either the greatest French poet or even greatest European poet of the modern era (~1850-2000 CE). The targeted audience includes (1) English readers who are not fluent in French, (2) epistemologically curious lovers of poetry, especially Baudelaire’s, and (3) any reader who is interested in the confluence of philosophy [secular and/or religious], poetry, and psychology.
Nota bene: If you think this is complicated — well, it is.
TABLE OF CONTENTS I. The Essay Proper
The Thematics of this Piece
Baudelaire’s Self-Described Aesthetics
Essai/Essay I. Section 0. Curiosités Esthétiques: An Introduction Essai/Essay I. A quoi bon la critique/What is the Use of Criticism?Essai/Essay II. Qu’est-ce que le Romanticism/What is Romanticism?Essai/Essay III. Du chic et du poncif/On the Chic and the Poncif [pompous]Essai/Essay IV. De l’ Héroïsme de la Vie moderne/On the Heroism of Modern LifeEssai/Essay V. De l’Essence du Rire/On the Essence of LaughterEssai/Essay VI. L’Art mnémonique/Mnemonic ArtEssai/Essay VII. Le Dandy/The DandyEssai/Essay VIII. Eloge du Maquillage/In Praise of Make-UpEssais I—VIII/Essays I—VIII. End of Essay Proper; Transitions
Book Keeping
Footnotes
Bibliography
* * *
TABLE OF CONTENTS II. Sundry Amplifications and other Excursions Beyond the Essay Proper
Amplifications: Sundry Amplifications
Aesthetic and Philosophical Terms: Definitions and Elaborations
Baudelaire’s Sensorium: Baudelaire’s Verbal Building Blocks
* * *
The Thematics of this Piece — An idiosyncratic epistemology noted.
Famous human beings — human beings with a major impact on our own sense of what is in important in our cultural, ethical, intellectual, social, political, and personal lives have normally been all-too-human creatures with personal weaknesses embedded in different times and circumstances than those of our own. Such a person was Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) who is touted by many literary and artistic critics as France’s premier modern poet
(e.g. ~1850-2000 CE). Indeed some critics consider him to have been the greatest European poet of the past 1-2 centuries. However, Baudelaire himself lived a quite troubled life after he was emotionally and physically separated from his mother as a young boy when she remarried. The pain of this separation is obvious in both his life and in his work. And while it is true he was able to utilize this pain in his work (frequently — but not always — in pessimistic venues) it is important to recognize that at times he became stuck in various self-defeating and maudlin relationships which would aggravate the very real “slings and arrows” thrown at him and which would, at times, compromise the artistic quality of his work. Furthermore, it is clear that some of the contradictions and tensions of his life were very poorly understood by the poet himself — indeed, at times, they were wittingly or unwittingly hidden from the poet himself and/or his readers. In this situation, readers and critics might very well say that in spite of his human frailties, Baudelaire produced great poetry. Indeed, it is a truism that both the best and the worst of our lives-and-work are usually quite imperfectly expressed in our words and suppositions. This is all quite true and, furthermore, many of those who most appreciate Baudelaire’s poetry are content with only a modicum of attention to his life. This moderate regard for the details of his life is attended by a more focused “Art for art’s sake” appreciation — a perspective which seemly to echoes Baudelaire’s own “aesthetic” approach to both his life and his work…
However sensible or appropriate such a perspective might be for some Baudelaire admirers, one obvious caveat is that not only are the works of an artist embedded within a culture of the times and the perspective of the artist himself — our own appreciation for these works is itself embedded within our own culture(s) and our own individual perspectives. This, it seems to me, is an unavoidable reality for us all. In spite of these inherent limitations, however, there are still ways in which progress is possible — that is to say that sometimes a new perspective arises which — in spite of its limitations — clearly provides us with a broader and more complete view of the works under consideration. Before discussing Baudelaire I provide here an exemplary example how such an unusually helpful new perspective can serve as a guide. I refer to the renown introduction to English-speaking audiences of the philosophical views of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) by Walter Kaufmann beginning with his
Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist (1950). Kaufmann demonstrated in no uncertain terms and contrary to “received opinions” in some quarters that (1) Nietzsche was not a proto-Nazi and that (2) Nietzsche’s sometimes scattered notes were underlain by a philosophical perspective — a Heraclitean
Weltanschauung [my words] — of the highest order. While
not in Kaufmann’s title but quite relevant to our considerations — we also note that Nietzsche’s sparse poetic output contained a few poems of the very highest order [
e.g.,
Ecce-Homo,
Vereinsamt].
Our own revaluation of Baudelaire is neither as extensive nor as thorough as Kaufmann’s revaluation of of Nietzsche’s work. However, it has two prominent features that are normally very inadequately discussed in the literature. One, as a protestant the author’s [LCHj] philosophy is in between (1) the very important residual Roman Catholic belief system which permeates — in very inconsistent ways —Baudelaire’s philosophical thinking and, on the other hand, (2) the normally secular audience who usually have a very superficial and often uninformed understanding of Baudelaire’s somewhat dated but otherwise philosophically precise and epistemologically precocious language as used in these eight essays. Two, Baudelaire’s psychological-and-artistically obscure connections between the man and his poetry, are often better understood by the Roman Catholic term for mercy,
misercordia, a word infrequently used in Baudelaire’s own language, than some of Baudelaire’s own terms (spleen, “satanism”, “
ennui”) . The issue at hand is that (as is argued here):
Baudelaire’s best poems are characterized not only by his mastery of the words he uses as descriptions-and-metaphors and the musical rhythms of his lines, but by the sense pervading the poem that a witness is the reporting the poem’s events. The presence of this witness is not always transparent in Baudelaire’s own language.
Baudelaire’s own use of such terms as
spleen, “satanism”, “
ennui” as terms of criticism or as explicit elements in the poems themselves are marred because the very real pain attested in his frequently negative and downward descents within his poems are attended by a marked solecism — a solecism often obscured by a despair tinged with maudlin self-pity and various casual blasphemies. Let us be clear — we can certainly imagine the Don Juan in Baudelaire’s
Don Juan aux Enfers/Don Juan in Hell walking right up to us straight out of Milton’s
Paradise Lost. However, many of Baudelaire’s blasphemous remarks are pallid reflections of the direct challenges to conventional piety expressed in great literature of both religious and secular origin (
e.g., Gulliver’s Travels, Nietzsche’s
Der Antichrist, Ivan’s inquiry of the Grand Inquisitor in
The Brothers Karamazov, or in Job’s Lament in Jewish and Christian
Bibles). Again, there have been many artists — Albrecht Dürer comes to my mind — who painted the “passion” of Christ [Christ-on-the-Cross] in exquisite detail. However, what is quite unusual about Baudelaire’s “pessimistic” painting is the unusual range in their aesthetic value (from the beautiful to the trivial). We will examine such disparately worthy presentations both below and elsewhere (vide infra!). In this situation, then, we will follow the paradigm of Michel Foucault’s “Archaeology” of Art-&-Artists — we examine the “residues” of the artist-and-his work to see if they provide useful hints about those realities which were not adequately articulated by the artist himself. When we do this we receive an immediate reward — the more or less direct connection between Baudelaire’s best ethical impulses received from Roman Catholicism and his articulated “aesthetic” principles is quite direct. [ We must also keep in mind that while Baudelaire could be quite sporadic in his Roman Catholicism — often a very ‘lapsed’ Catholic who might occasionally go to church or see a priest — with attitudes towards the church which would evolve, devolve, and revolves over decade long intervals (not unlike a recovering alcoholic who will not drink for several years and suddenly binge drink for several weeks or years). [Footnote#1] And, while the focus in this essay our focus is upon the eight essays from Curiosités Esthétiques, we do briefly touch on the much more complicated connections between his actual poetic work and the essays (vide infra!).
Essai/Essay 0. Curiosités Esthétiques: An Introduction to Baudelaire’s Aesthetics, Self-Described
[As the arts involve the sentiment, passions, and dreams of all humanity…] (aesthetic) “criticism at every moment involves metaphysics.”
“
Comme ils [tous les arts] sont toujours le beau exprimé par le sentiment, la passion et le rêverie de chacun, c’est-à-dire la variété dans l’unité, ou les faces diverse de l’absolu,—la critique touche à chaque instant à la métaphysique.”
Baudelaire’s epistemology.
Weltanschauung — A German term literally translated as “World View” or, more generally, as a universal philosophical or intellectual perspective. The German term is preferred here because the German “philosophical” understanding of the spirit or the mind’s world is much broader and more disinterested than comparable English words (psychology, philosophy, metaphysics, …). [
Vide Infra!]
Baudelaire’s own aesthetic views were well described in eight essays from
Curiosités Esthétiques which were translated in Fowlie’s 1964 selection of Baudelaire’s works. A careful reading reveals that while Baudelaire is ostensibly describing various generic themes important in art (including literature, painting, poetry, and criticism) in each individual case there are clear references to Baudelaire’s own fundamental and explicitly personal assumptions about the “proper” way to approach the considered issues. The primary topics (Criticism, Romanticism, Chic, Modernity, Laughter, Mnemonic Art, The Dandy, Make-up…) are not surprising. Most of the individual essays are guided by a recognizable Baudelairian theme. However, Baudelaire is
not discussing these principles [“Criticism, Romanticism, Chic
et cetera”] in general terms. Thus, in the essays “Romanticism”, “The Dandy” and “Make-up” he is offering a generally positive view of the aesthetic principles being explored. In other essays he is offers generally negative view of the topic explored. However, in a few essays it is notable that he provides very explicit perspectives about both the proper use and distracting misuse of certain terms (“Romanticism” and “Criticism”, especially, are given a very nuanced discussion) [In his own inimitable and idiosyncratic ‘style’ of course]. This particular combination of both tone and substance is notable precisely because many of Baudelaire’s poems end on a decidedly declarative note. Central to our own essay is the additional and seldom discussed factor that he often makes very brief explicit epistemological assertions about “aesthetic” issues that parallel some of the most abstruse thematics of such topics by renown thinkers in various fields (philosophy, psychology, literature
etc.). In the first essay, for example, he approves a statement by Balzac to the effect that “Painting” is simply morality at work. An explication of Baudelaire’s very precise views on what art at its best is-and-should be will be the primary focus of this essay. And as poetry (along with a few “prose poems”) was Baudelaire’s primary artistic metier — the core of our explication will be describing the extent to which these principles help us to understand Baudelaire’s actual poetic work.
There is, however, a very fundamental problem with respect to the relationship between Baudelaire’s exquisitely described aesthetic vision in the 8 essays presented here and his actual poetic work. On a few occasions, Baudelaire’s poems consistently embody many of these articulated principles — and such poems include a few of his masterpieces. However, in many instances his actual poems contain odd details and significant features which are clearly at variance with these articulated principles — many of these poems are still excellent poems and include poems which are considered to be among his finest. However, in my view, in a very inexact fashion a few of those poems which are least consistent with Baudelaire’s stated principles include some of his very worst poems (aesthetically and otherwise…). Now, of course, one might immediately think that no poem — let alone a great poem — can fully implement anyone’s theory of poetic aesthetics. I certainly agree, there is almost always a creative tension between the various components of any good or great poem — and this is indubitably true for (virtually?) all of Baudelaire’s poetry. However, there are two related, but distinguishable problematics which make such a formulaic dismissal of Baudelaire’s poetic failure’s unsustainable. One is a simple epistemological principle. While many of us believe that great art, especially, has a moral dimension, it will not sustain us to work with the simple assumption that the pursuit of beauty alone will take us to the moral high ground (the “good”). This sort of epistemological fallacy is similar to the notion that physics and mathematics can be reduced to each other. Modern physics and modern mathematics are, indeed, inextricably linked — but any tests for the uncertainty principle of modern quantum mechanics and any descriptions of black holes must rest upon found observable features of the universe and — on the other hand — any validation of the Riemann Hypothesis, the Goldbach Conjecture, or Fermat’s Last Theorem must reside in their (possible) proofs. When one reduces a major component of the mind’s reach to a simple equivalence with another component — normally, there is an unspoken assumption at work which is not conducive to a deeper understanding of the issues involved. Furthermore, there is additional relevant evidence. Baudelaire’s undigested personal traumas — beginning with his physical separation from his mother and continuing into his destructive relationships with Jeanne Duval and others — did not merely make him miserable. It created pain which — even incompletely mastered — could certainly be used as as ingredients for his poetic “alchemy.” However, it could also drive some of his poems into an aesthetic abyss.
Introductory Subtext — one, two, three ‘background’ items
One, Baudelaire possessed an unusually nuanced and rich vocabulary which he used to create vivid sensory descriptions and metaphors. His vocabulary for smells was unusually precocious and the words and the rhythm of were marked by musical tonality nonpareil.
Two, as hinted above, the persona of Baudelaire intrudes into his life and works in diverse and unpredictable fashion. Ab initio, we note that Baudelaire’s Roman Catholicism is present on the ground floor of Baudelaire’s aesthetics. However, his Roman Catholicism is often opaque and, furthermore, notoriously inconsistent.
Three, as we explore Baudelaire principles we will note arguments that are strikingly parallel to those developed more extensively by such thinkers as Nietzsche, Freud, Pascal, and Chomsky.
We will not be able to explore these issues in great detail here. However, a more careful look at Baudelaire’s own words combined with a more informed view of his life can lead us to — as I will argue elsewhere that — his very powerful poetry is much more relevant to modern aesthetic and moral issues than a merely “poetic” aesthetics.
* * *
Essai/Essay I.
A quoi bon la critique/What is the Use of Criticism?.
This first essay is unusually rich in quotable lines and as a preliminary introduction to several important thematics. We restrict ourselves here to a small sample. The quotation we have chosen as the theme of our essay — “Criticism involves metaphysics” comes only near the end of the essay. Several other statements have been quoted much more frequently. We begin with what I believe to be one of the best brief definitions of aesthetics in the literature.
After “I hope that philosophers will understand what I am going to say;” he soon continues with “…criticism should be partisan, passionate and political, … [as] … conceived from a particular point of view … which opens up the largest number of horizons.” [Underlinings provided by LCHj].
Parallels with Nietzsche spring immediately to my mind. Artistic criticism are produced as existential activities of intentional living beings [Nietzsche would sometimes label such bundled activities as “Will to Power” whereas Baudelaire emphasizes “passion” even more than Nietzsche]. In addition, in their writings both men strove to link their own ‘life products’ to a broader audience and universe. Baudelaire’s personal perspective is emphasized by an earlier remark in the essay, to wit: “…the best criticism is musing and poetic; not the cold mathematical kind, which … shows neither hate nor love, and voluntarily rids itself of every trace of feeling; but rather … criticism is the picture as seen by an intelligent sensitive spirit. Therefore, the best article on a painting [or any work of art!! - lchj] could be a sonnet or an elegy.” Thus Baudelaire emphasizes that his personal predisposition is for passion explicitly expressed.
However, the last sentence reference to a sonnet or elegy could be the best ‘critique’ for a painting takes us into linguistic epistemological principles which were particularly described by Noam Chomsky! To wit, Chomsky applied to language (as symbolic expression) principles which paralleled some of those principles applied to numbers and (mathematical) logic by the work of such thinkers as Cantor and Gödel. Both Cantor and Gödel had proved — among other things — that close attention to the “infinite” number of rational numbers revealed that between any two rational numbers there were a much “larger” infinity of “irrational” numbers. Using such principles of ordering various “infinite” sets, Chomsky had specifically shown that ‘words’ (more precisely, semantic primitives) were members of unbounded sets whose limits could not be prescribed. In Baudelaire’s single sentence Baudelaire has asserted that artistic “criticism” — which we instinctively think of as a (purely) linguistic product is actually a mere subset of artistic expression (literature, painting, music, poetry, etc., etc. …)!!
Baudelaire, Charles (1869) “A quoi bon la critique?” Included with English Translation “What is the Use of Criticism?”: Baudelaire selections by Fowlie, editor & translator (1964) opus citare, pp. 154-159.
* * *
Essai/Essay II. Qu’est-ce que le Romanticism/What is Romanticism?.
In this essay Baudelaire first takes both time and care to distinguish between Romanticism as a spiritually lazy and even stultified clinging to the past and Romanticism as a perspective which may harken to the past as part of sharpening one’s individual awareness of the present (Example, Romanticism as a “return” to nature, a nature which is in fact always present). Baudelaire continues, almost spouting, as one phrase follows another:
“Actually romanticism is neither in the choice of subjects nor in adherence to truth. It is in the manner of feeling a subject.
It has been sought for outside, and it is only within that romanticism can possibly be found.
For me, romanticism is the most recent, the most contemporary expression of beauty.
There are as many forms of beauty as there are traditional ways of seeking happiness.”
…
“By Romanticism, one means modern art—namely, intimacy, spirituality, color, aspiration towards the absolute, expressed by all the methods contained in arts.”
Baudelaire continues even further. He sees differences in the physical and cultural conditions in Northern [European!!] naturally resulting in different art (emphasizing colors) than the (more brutal) physical and cultural conditions of Spain [likewise] naturally resulting in painters of contrast. Likewise, he celebrates natural differences in individual painters. I see no need here to further explicate Baudelaire’s “reasoning” outside of very specific conversational contrasts. The main point — once one grants that there are different motives driving the different motifs — is that Artistic production — in this instance, paintings of various styles — are, like the multiple species of flowers within a floral garden, to be first appreciated as they are before we deal with the important second question of how we would assess or arrange them with respect to each other.
Baudelaire, Charles (1869) “
Qu’est-ce que le Romanticism?” Included with English Translation “What Is Romanticism?”: Baudelaire selections by Fowlie, editor & translator (1964)
opus citare, pp. 158-163.
* * *
Essai/Essay III.
Du chic et du poncif/On the Chic and the
Poncif [pompous].
In this essay Baudelaire discusses the two terms “Chic” and “Poncif” (pompous). To my mind, the essay is mostly concerned with traducing the overemphasis upon a shallow modernity and a shallow traditionalism. The point is well taken, but I instinctively think that while one may wish to be up-to-date, modern, chic or, even, au courant — the mere saying of words does not put them into effect. Still, Baudelaire produces some arresting phrases: “Chic is the misuse of memory; or, rather, Chic is a memory of the hand rather than a memory of the mind;” and “The chic may be compared to the work of those masters of penmanship, gifted with a skillful hand…”. All very well and good. Still, more interesting to me would be a serious and knowledgeable discussion of Chinese and Japanese calligraphy… These efforts include examples of “penmanship” that are not merely “techniques”.
Baudelaire, Charles (1869) “
Du chic et du poncif” Included with English Translation “On the Chic and the Poncif”: Baudelaire selections by Fowlie, editor & translator (1964) opus citare, pp. 162-165.
* * *
Essai/Essay IV. De l’ Héroïsme de la Vie moderne/On the Heroism of Modern Life.
This essay begins with:
“Many people attribute decadence in painting to decadence in social behavior. This studio prejudice, which is popular in the public, is a bad excuse for artists. …
It is true that the great tradition is over, and the new tradition is not founded.”
I am immediately reminded of Nietzsche’s comment that “Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman—a rope over an abyss. … a bridge and not an end.” [Stretched, as it were, between the ‘no longer’ and the ‘not yet’.]
In the fourth paragraphs Baudelaire asserts: “All forms of beauty contain, as all possible phenomena, something eternal and something transitory — something absolute and something specific. Absolute beauty does not exist, or at best it is a mere abstraction drawn superficially from the surface of several kinds of beauty.” One can, of course, argue or insist that there are no absolute or transcendent realities — many have and many will continue to do so. However, such arguments or perspectives assume that the speaker has found a “place” from which he or she can characterize the whole — and others, such as Baudelaire or this author simply note that such an assertion cannot be proven.
The text then considers various epochs in the history of painting (“painting” acts as Baudelaire’s representative of all art) as well as discussions of fashions, the nude, literature, and the overlooked beauty in ‘ordinary’ vistas. [“Parisian life is rich in poetic and miraculous subjects. The miraculous envelops us and waters us like the atmosphere; but we do not see it.”] I am personally not overly concerned with Baudelaire’s generic complaints about various trends and fads of his day. However, I am very impressed by his persistent emphasis upon the necessity of a personal vision. As he moves from one topic to another he begins his 11th paragraph by interjecting “In order to return to the leading and essential question, which s to know whether we possess a particular beauty, inherent in new passions …” before he considers again — the tensions between publicly or politically approved subjects and the artists own desires. “Heroism” and “fashion” are unusually tenuous words with which to fashion — if you will — an artistic ethic, but Baudelaire is quite clear that the sustaining element in all of this is the artist’s own lived and felt existence.
Baudelaire, Charles (1869) “
De l’Héroïsme de la Vie moderne” Included with English Translation “On the Heroism of Modern Life”: Baudelaire selections by Fowlie, editor & translator (1964)
opus citare, pp. 164-171.
* * *
Essai/Essay V.
De l’Essence du Rire/On the Essence of Laughter.
In this essay [easily the longest in the entire suite] Baudelaire explores an unspoken assumption which appears to accompany laughter in many contexts. His guiding principle is to suggest in several instance and to state specifically in one instance that spontaneous laughter is a form of unconscious pride. I would suspect that there are many instances of embarrassed laughter that conceal a certain prudishness. [I am also conscious that a friend once rebuked me for being overly critical of a person’s prudish laughter because — in his words — our laughter is frequently one of the few and, usually, less harmful releases from the stresses of being human (irony, gallows humor) whether we are prudish or not.] I am further reminded of the vacuous smiles and laughter of some members of the audience at those Donald J. Trump’s rallies where cruelty is on even more open display than their “pride”. Clearly, it seems to me that unconscious processes are often at work in our laughter. What is more intriguing is that Baudelaire’s brief remarks were penned roughly half a century before Freud’s Wit and its Relationship to the Unconscious (1905) [German: Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten]. Nietzsche also comes to mind: ‘(A) “I did it.” says my memory, (B) “I did not do it!” says my pride. (C) Finally, my pride wins.’
There is, however, one statement in the essay which — I believe — points to a profound dichotomy in Baudelaire’s psyche (his self, his soul). This statement is a minor fly in the ointment from the standpoint of poetic ideals in this suite of 8 essays. It is, however, much more relevant to some of the highs and lows of Baudelaire’s actual poetic output. Nearly half way thru the essay Baudelaire states that:
“Laughter is Satanic, and therefore profoundly human.”
These remarks are almost certainly understood as a poorly digested version of the general Christian and specifically French Roman Catholic (often uncharitable) Dogma of Original Sin. While one could try to explore the various phases and vagaries of Baudelaire’s early Roman Catholic upbringing and his later on again, off again (usually) “lapsed Catholicism” — such an approach will provide only mixed dividends in understanding. The Scarfe (1968) selection of Baudelaire’s poetry indicates that late in is life and after his affair with Jeanne Duval had finally ended, Baudelaire seems to have been partially reconciled both to his mother and to Roman Catholicism. However, Baudelaire’s comments about “Satanism” I read as fundamentally an obscuring screen.
There is a Spanish story about “Buridan’s Ass” (several versions are known): In one version an ass was both desperately hungry and desperately thirsty and had stopped in the middle of the road. It turns out that he was equally hungry and equally thirsty and that as the water on one side of the road and the hay on the other side of the road were also equally distant, he was flummoxed — and, so, equally transfixed by these two desirables, he eventually died unable to make up his mind. The value of the story for many is that it can begin a discussion. One might resolve the story by saying that a human being might resolve such a dilemma by flipping a coin. Or, one might engage in a deep discussion about the limitations of any theoretical “dilemma”… Likewise, the story can serve as a starting point for understanding Baudelaire, but I wish to add a new twist. Baudelaire’s “Satanism” is his verbal formulation that his own psyche was “standing on” such unstable self-contradictions — e.g., so utterly split by both his pain and his despair — that his existential focus caromed in first one direction and then in another, from one extreme to the next. Normally, the direction was down — into pessimism. However, these vagaries were never the whole story — and, I believe, we simply need to appreciate that Baudelaire’s poetry was much more than his theory. However broken his heart — it was still a wildly beating heart which produced in spite of himself (and his usually misleading statements about “Satan”) some wonderful poetry.
Baudelaire, Charles (1869) “
De l’Essence du Rire” Included with English Translation “On the Essence of Laughter”: Baudelaire selections by Fowlie, editor & translator (1964)
opus citare, pp. 170-185.
* * *
Essai/Essay VI.
L’Art mnémonique/Mnemonic Art.
In this essay of moderate length (just over 3 pages in French) Baudelaire goes into great detail following the principles articulated in essays #1 and #2. I will only quote a few examples as the pertinency of his descriptions require a familiarity with painters that I do not posses. However, the flavor is quite Baudelairian:
“It is certain that all true good designers drawn for the image inscribed in their minds, and not from nature, … When a real artist has reached the definitive execution of his work, the model would be an embarrassment for him rather than a help.”
On the other hand: “the more an artist considers every detail with impartiality, the greater the growth of anarchy. Whether he is nearsighted or farsighted, all hierarchy and all subordination disappear. This is an accident which often appears in the world of one of our most popular painters [Mr. Frederick Lemaître] …” The word “popular” here is not a compliment. The main point as pursued both here and thru the entire suite of essays is that the artist begins with his inner, unique vision and that he then uses whatever tools are available as “grist for his meal.” Baudelaire simply assumes that the available tools will vary within every epoch, every country, and every artist.
Baudelaire, Charles (1869) “
L’Art mnémonique” Included with English Translation “Mnemonic Art”: Baudelaire selections by Fowlie, editor & translator (1964)
opus citare, pp. 184-191.
* * *
Essai/Essay VII.
Le Dandy/The Dandy.
In this essay Baudelaire creates a new french word (“
le dandy”) imported directly from English. And, this word is — especially for Baudelaire — mostly a laudatory term because it encapsulates a number of autobiographical references. I distinguish two features of the word — altho it is quite clear to me that the two features are so intertwined in Baudelaire’s life-and-work that any differentiation will be only partially successful. First, Baudelaire is especially sensitive to both sensations and relationships that we are often predisposed to see in women. For example, Baudelaire is unusually aware of smells, fragrances, aromas, and ambience. Now, it is also well known that some of the best chefs, the best perfume producers, and the best clothes designers include men — even if we grant that women tend to be more interested in these issues than men and, furthermore, even if we grant that women have been systematically held back from leadership in such fields in both ‘primitive’ and ‘modern’ societies. In any case, Baudelaire is unusual not only for his intense interest and precocity in smells and aromas, Baudelaire is also quite intrigued — even obsessed — with what we might call style and, especially, flair. He was what we might call a “
poseur”. There is, however, a feature of Baudelaire’s poetry and life which seems to be much deeper (and more difficult to get at) than those people who we think of as primarily interested in the “surface” of things. Baudelaire is almost always not only “looking at his image” in the mirror — he is always thinking about and imagining what lies behind the mirror or perhaps even in the mirror itself. He seems as it were to be traveling thru life as if he were in one of those carnival rides thru a series of odd and frequently terrifying distortions which some of us still remember from our childhood. I cannot pretend to be able to give anything which might definitively disentangle why some people seem to survive various wounds of childhood — and why others are traumatized in ways that they do not escape and, perhaps, seem unable to escape.
Still, there are a few statements in the essay that allow us to make significant headway with Baudelaire himself. The first and unusually complex sentence of the essay itself makes it quite clear that Baudelaire’s “Dandy” is a very odd mixture of biographical and aspirational elements:
“The wealthy, unoccupied man who, even blasé, has no other duty save that of hurrying along the road of happiness; the man raised in luxury and accustomed from his youth to the obedience of other men; the man who, in a word, has no other profession save elegance which will always possess, at all epochs, distinct characteristics which set him apart.”
My first thought in reading this is that it reminds me of one of his “Spleen” poems [
Spleen (“
Je suis comme le roi d’un pays pluvieux”)/Spleen (“I am like the king of a rainy country…”)] and of the latter part of
L’Albatros/Albatross. Except that, however, (1) the young king in the Spleen poem nurses a painful secret (“
Le Secret douleur) and (2) the albatross soars only after awkwardly struggling and being derided at the beginning of the poem. Unusually similar to the Spleen poem in tone is the much lauded
La Vie Antérieure/A Former Life which also describes a quiet despair coexisting with luxury. Thus, quite clearly in Baudelaire’s description of the "Dandy" we see a clearly sanitized version of the sort of person we sometimes find in actual Baudelaire poems.
However, much more troubling than the inconsistencies just noticed — all three of the above poems are often considered to be excellent or even masterful poems — are these particular words which remain after we prune the sentence:
““The wealthy… man who… has no other duty save that of hurrying along the road of happiness; the man…who… has no other profession save elegance… will always possess distinct characteristics which set him apart.”
This particular sentence harkens back to the words of Aristotle who stated that enslaved humans were by nature servile and necessary “instruments” in society. The Greek word for slave (
δοῦλος) is cognate with our English word tool. While slavery has been present in many societies from pre-historic times up to and including the present and while actual relationships between master and slave have always have levels of complexity which defy easy generalities, I am quite content to begin such discussions with words along the lines indicated here:
The depths of human depravity revealed in the behavior of those individuals and culture who have considered themselves to be entitled to treat other human beings as mere tools for their own use and pleasure have historically been among the most indicative of the moral abyss that human beings can fall into. More simply put — slave-owning of any sort is a species of human depravity that mars the very bottom of the souls/selfs of any slaveholder and his/her accomplices. The supposition of group and/or individual entitlement, both conscious and unconscious, is usually the most critical trademark of the crime. As for Baudelaire his words here indicate to me that he has clearly drunk the poison. How, when, and to what extent the poison effects and distorts an individual poem must be determined from the individual poems themselves.
One example, the Poem
Abel et Caïn/Abel and Cain is well worded, but is utterly bereft of notable passion [a poem with a dead heart].
Baudelaire, Charles (1869) “
Le Dandy” Included with English Translation “The Dandy”: Baudelaire selections by Fowlie, editor & translator (1964)
opus citare, pp. 192-199.
* * *
Essai/Essay VIII.
Eloge du Maquillage/In Praise of Make-Up.
We might say that the entire essay could be entitled “In praise of baubles, jewels, and women’s artifice” which would not really be wrong — but it would miss the point. I note three major component of the essay. One, the natural naive interest in new color and forms cannot be suppressed in any simple manner. Two, many women have a strong and enduring passion for artifice and fashion which is deeply rooted in their efforts to find lovers and/or mates. Three, the entire essay is permeated by an unusual dichotomy between good and evil that appears to have been constructed out an unusually puritanical branch of French Roman Catholicism.
Subsection One, natural naive interest
Baudelaire notes in various ways the child, the savage, and the untutored human appreciate the pleasing appearance of the new and different. “Sophisticated” souls — when not caught up in their own generalities — usually appreciate these phenomena as well, furtively or openly, as their psychological filters allow. Baudelaire takes special aim at Louis XV:
“Woe to the man who, like Louis XV (who was not the product of a real civilization, but of a return of barbarity), is depraved enough not to enjoy anything except simple nature.” The point here is that Louis XV’s “nature” was so artificially filtered as to be in its own way quite unnatural [my words, not Baudelaire’s].
Subsection Two, The ways and wiles of women
After several twists and turns, Baudelaire begins to expostulates at length about women’s fascination with the (seemingly) superficial and aspects of life. He has already defined “fashion” — “Fashion should… be considered a symptom of the ideal surviving above all [paraphrasing, the ubiquitous coarseness of daily life]”. For women, then:
“Woman is certainly within her rights, and she even performs a kind of duty when she endeavors to appear magical and supernatural; she should dazzle men, and charm them; she is an idol, who should be covered with gold in order to be worshipped. She should therefore borrow from all the arts the means of rising above nature in order to subjugate all hearts and impress all minds.…” [Baudelaire continues ‘with a vengeance’ for another page before he ends the essay] “I will be satisfied with relying on true artists, as well as women who receive at birth a spark of the sacred fire which they would like to penetrate their entire being.”
We could certainly view Baudelaire’s last page and a half as a diatribe which proffers a dated worldview of male domination and female subordination which is unacceptable to the modern world and, especially, the modern woman. [We are, it appears, listening to a repressive description of women’s roll delivered as it were “on steroids” However, there are two problems with making such a reading. First, any worldview is both culturally and temporally constricted. Whether we are talking about the conflicts between many of the matriarchal societies conquered by the patriarchal Indo-European marauders ~4,000-6,000 years ago or the creation of mind-skilled technologies [which do not require unusual muscular strength] during the past two centuries, important technological-cultural-political shifts among human civilizations tend to overreach their transformational optimums. I would myself argue that Baudelaire has indeed overstated his case, but their are other issues besides cultural relativism involved. I state that as a matter of fact a significant number of women are more naturally disposed to be accommodating and pleasant towards men — especially, potential mates, lovers, and mates. This ‘accommodating’ tendency is quite frequently accompanied by both a desire and the ability [craft!] to be “alluring”. [I am quite aware that my own statement is “controversial”. I do say that a very good way to approach this subject is the old forgotten classic: Ashley Montagu’s
Natural Superiority of Women (1953).] I would also add that a smaller number of men tend to be — compared to most men — quite preoccupied with issues of flair.
There is, however, a more important matter that is actually decisive and not nearly as controversial as, say, my own views. When Baudelaire states that some souls [including many women] are, as it were, inordinately interested in flair— he views such souls favorably because he is also talking about himself! Thus whether and to what extent and irregardless of the plasticity of human sexual roles — Baudelaire is himself at times totally immersed in the apparently pretty or beautiful whether such beauty is a “merely” transitory surface phenomenon or a more deeply rooted reality.
Subsection Three, Dichotomization of good and evil within Baudelaire’s Roman Catholic [!?]“theology” of Nature
From its beginning in the decades following the death of Jesus of Nazareth (~28 CE), a significant number of important Christians have displayed a moderately or even extreme tendency to disvalue the physical and, especially, the sexual pleasures that so frequently engross so many members of our species. I note that our scant records of Jesus’s own life allude to critics of Jesus who referred to him as one who enjoyed himself in the company of “sinners”. Furthermore, I note that Paul of Tarsus is recorded as saying that “it is better to marry than to burn” [with an inordinate desire for sexual pleasures with the other sex]. This tendency to think that our naive and natural pleasures have been tainted as a consequence of the sins of our ancestors [often particularized as the
Original Sin of “Adam” and “Eve” in the Garden of Eden] has been ubiquitous in most major branches of Christianity for nearly two millennia. And, Baudelaire himself — apparently — was exposed in his childhood and adolescent schooling to an unusually puritanical branch of French Roman Catholicism. Unfortunately, the details of his education are further obscured (skewed) as Baudelaire developed his own idiosyncratic and extreme dichotomization of natural pleasures which permeate this essay. I quote a very short, but illustrative excerpt:
“If you … review and analyze everything that is natural, all the actions and desires of the pure natural man, you will find only horrible things. All that is beautiful and noble is the result of reason and calculation. Crime … is natural in the origins. Virtue … is artificial and supernatural …”.
There are numerous details which color his “analysis” — thus the 3rd sentence in full read “Crime, the taste for which the human animal draws from his mother, is natural in the origins. [Italics are mine.] Nevertheless, however deep and dark his Roman Catholic instructors may or may not have been, Baudelaire has himself gone off the rails when he supplies the sort of ‘historical analysis’ to the ‘aesthetic principles’ exemplified in this essay. The wonder is that any of this makes sense — even somewhat miraculous [mirabilis!] — that any of his poetry was ever even half way decent — let alone good, excellent, and occasionally extraordinarily superior! At this juncture I am content to say that Baudelaire’s poetic genius was simply much greater than the sum of its recognizable components as articulated by him or by anyone else! Further psychological, intellectual, and/or philosophical insight is always possible, but — for the purposes of this essay — I think that the point has been made that accepting some of Baudelaire’s statements at face value is to follow Baudelaire down a rabbit hole.
Baudelaire, Charles (1869) “
Eloge du Maquillage” Included with English Translation “In Praise of Make-Up”: Baudelaire selections by Fowlie, editor & translator (1964)
opus citare, pp. 198-207.
Cf.,
Le Miroir/The Mirror;
La Beauté/Beauty;
Le Jet d’Eau/The Fountain;
* * *
Essais I—VIII/Essays I—VIII. End of Essay Proper; Transitions
Our introduction and brief commentary on each of the 8 essays have been presented. Because of some unusual time pressures and restraints upon the author (LCHj) we are presenting our first version here. We anticipate that a few typo’s and minor corrections will be forthcoming in the near future. As for the deeper question broached here — what is the connection between Baudelaire’s articulated aesthetics and his actual poetic corpus? — we simply say that the sundry items which follow the bibliography may be substantially revised or even eliminated as planned essays in this series of essays are posted in the future. In the meantime, however, they are possible food for thought for those readers who are intensely interested in Baudelaire’s poetry and/or are interested in an existentially grounded epistemology of Art [two of my own primary interests].
* * *
Bookkeeping Items: Quotations, Spelling Conventions, Author’s Idiosyncratic Newspell
Nota bene: If you think this is complicated — it is. We are mostly discussing here implicit implications of nuanced and epistemologically pregnant terminology in two very different languages, English and French, in order to discuss the poetry and critical vision of a wordsmith nonpareil. This author’s intentions are too keep in mind both the surface meaning and the deeper and sometimes concealed “underwater” currents which produced Baudelaire’s poetry.
Bookkeeping, Quotations:
Translation: We note that except in those rare cases where a word has nearly identical meanings in both the original language and in the target language, translations are almost always a species of paraphrasing. We will usually suppress this truism — except when it is deemed important not to suppress the truism!
“
Double Quotations” are normally used for (1) direct quotations in French from Baudelaire, (2) direct quotations in English from Baudelaire’s Curiosités Esthétiques as translated in the works edited, translated, and selected by Fowlie (1964), (3) direct quotations from other authors, and (4) other instances where we are using the term as might be expected from the immediate context.
‘
Single Quotations’ (1) mildly paraphrased quotations from the English found in the Fowlie (1964) selections, (2) numerous instances where the term — as proffered by Baudelaire and/or by this author (lchj) — is accompanied by ambiguous implications behind or beneath the term which conceals conflicting and even contradictory meanings.
Italics: The author uses italics both for Titles and mild emphasis.
Quotations at the end of a sentence or phrase. The author has begun to junk the received convention that quotation marks at the end of a phrase or sentence should be placed after a period. This convention if fine when one is following a continuous conversation. However, here we are mostly describing or comparing words —
semantic building blocks (or “surds’). Thus, I have begun to place such descriptions before a period or comma —
e.g., within a semantically appropriate structure.
Style and Substance (LCHj): Using English the author attempts here to partially clarify various connections between the language of Baudelaire and the deeper psychological-spiritual currents both fair and foul which both informed and influenced the sometimes magnificent, frequently excellent, and — occasionally — wretched poetic work of one all-too-human Charles Baudelaire. The use of dashes — perfected by Nietzsche — and other devises to bracket ambiguous or poorly defined semantic boundaries appears to be much more appropriate in this context than in most intellectual venues. Whether I have met these goals is for the reader to decide for himself.
Caveat Lector: The author notes that exact equivalence in translation in aesthetics, ethics, morality, philosophy, and religion [
e.g., any “field” with implications for values-and-emotions] are almost always a
pipe dream. We note, for example, in this instance that the English titles for Baudelaire’s poems differ with the translators [Most egregious: A translation of “Gulf” instead of “Abyss” for “
Le Gouffre” — surely a reference to fellow Roman Catholic Pascal]. This principle is particularly true for Baudelaire who may introduce at any moment a novel and idiosyncratic nuance for a term which had no exact foreign equivalent even before Baudelaire picked up his pen. Please note that the author [LCHj] uses boldface quite liberally. He relies on boldface, italics, and dashes, however, because as he is writing these words his mind has slowed down as if he were talking to you the reader — and looking you in the eye and/or holding your hand. In other words, here he-and-hopefully-the reader are
simultaneously looking at both the surface meanings and the secret meanings of things.
Bookkeeping, Spelling: LCHj idiosyncrasies
In both the author’s M.A. thesis (Univ. Texas [Austin], 1982) and his later Ph.D. dissertation (Univ. Iowa, 1989), I spelled a number of words in a manner minimally consistent with their pronunciation over the last millennium. In particular, I used new spellings for words whose “proper” spellings contain ungodly Germanic gutturals which have not been used in most English-speaking venues since the days of Alfred the Great (~848-899 CE). Thus, for four decades I have almost alway used spellings such as brite, lite, nite, and thru in my formal efforts and in my private and public communications. [When current homonyms create ambiguities (e.g.,“rite” & “right”; “site” & “sight”) I am more chary with such “newspell”.] When quoting my normal practice it to use the spelling of the author “as is”. While it appears that the political power of the United States of America has begun a very deep dive and that English may well lose its status as the world’s lingua franca, English is still a very intriguing language associated with marvelous past and present troves of written text. Whether it takes another century or another millennium — and even if English becomes a dead language like Latin, Labu, Hittite or Sumerian — producing a transparent spelling system is the only viable goal for those who intend to participate in an increasingly complex multilingual world. Currently, modern Korean and Spanish appear to be the best examples of such spelling systems used by large populations.
Footnotes
Footnote#1. The author is quite mindful that readers will have quite different responses to whether the French Roman Catholic Church or Baudelaire’s ‘straying away from the fold’ is the real poison.
Bibliography [Historically important English Selections of Baudelaire’s Poetry (+ starting points for linguistic epistemology]
Diane Ackerman (1991).
A Natural History of the Senses. Vintage Books (Random House, Inc.): New York & Toronto. Paperback, pp. 34.
Charles Baudelaire (1869).
Curiosités Esthétiques, edited by Théophile Gautier. At pp. 154-207 in:
Charles Baudelaire (1964). Flowers of Evil and Other Works/
Les Fleurs du Mal et Oeuvres Choisies by Charles Baudelaire. Wallace Fowlie, Editor & Translator. Bantam Books: New York.
Charles Baudelaire (1964). Flowers of Evil and Other Works/
Les Fleurs du Mal et Oeuvres Choisies by Charles Baudelaire. Wallace Fowlie, Editor & Translator. A Bantam Dual-Language, Bantam Books: New York. 299 pages, paper [=xiii + 291]. (52 poems, 14 prose poems, prose [essays, reviews, assortae - including 3 letters].)
Charles Baudelaire (1968).
Baudelaire. Francis Scarfe, Editor & Translator. Penguin Books: Middlesex, England; Baltimore, MD, USA. 282 pages, paper [=lxii + 270]. [143 poems w. smaller print plain English translations below.; The introduction contains more pertinent biographical detail than most treatments of Baudelaire (which may describe Baudelaire’s self-described “aesthetics”, but tend to ignore much or even all of his Biota.)
Angel Flores, Editor (1958).
Anthology of French Poetry from Nerval to Valéry in English translations. Anchor Books, Doubleday & Company, Inc.: Garden City, New York. 480 pages, paper [xviii+456+6]. (French originals found towards rear in French Texts texts, pp. 287-443).
Wallace Fowlie (1955, 1992).
Modern French Poets: Selections with Translations (A Dual-Language Book). Dover Publications, Inc.: New York. 273 pages, paper. Dover Publications, Inc.: New York.
Walter Kaufmann (1950, 1974).
Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, AntiChrist [4/e]. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ, USA. 532 pages, paper.
Ashley Montagu (1953, 1957)
The Natural Superiority of Women. MacMillan Company: New York. 205 pages.
Ernst Nagel & James R. Newman (1956) “Goedel’s Proof” in:
The World of Mathematics, vol. 3, James R. Newman, editor. pp. 1668-1695. Simon and Schuster: New York.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1954, 1964)
The Portable Nietzsche. Editor and Translator, Walter Kaufmann. The Viking Press: New York, NY. 687 pages, paper.
[The Bibliographical entries here normally refer to my own copy (dates, edition) as slite and virtually traceless changes frequently appear when one relies entirely on the WEB.]
Personal Note: Minor changes and corrections (typos!?, spacing aesthetics,…) are to be expected in the moderately near future for the “essay proper”. The author (LChj) is existentially constrained to put this essay “out there” before he can “spiff up” the post to his own standards. The most immediate problem is that the transfer of his own file onto the Google world is not a “seamless” task…
End of Essay Proper
Amplifications:
Amplifications: Sundry Excursions Beyond the Essay Proper
Introduction — one, two, three more things [Expanded]
Aesthetic and Philosophical Terms: Definitions and Elaborations [in medias res]
Baudelaire’s Sensorium: Baudelaire’s Verbal Building Blocks
Amplifications: Sundry Excursions Beyond the Essay Proper
The primary task of this essay was to present 8 Baudelaire essays as a presentation of Baudelaire’s ideals of poetic expression. While some later refinements are quite desirable, the author is content that the effort above may be of interest to those who are interested in Baudelaire’s poetry. However, the more difficult and interesting question as to how consistent Baudelaire’s actual poetic work is with these articulated principles still remains with us. The “Amplifications” below only begin to gather pertinent information and insight which might suggest meaningful answers to the second question. They are offered here “as is” with the hope that they may be useful to some readers
Introduction — one, two, three more things [Expanded]
One, as discussed below [the Baudelaire’s
Sensorium section] following our main text, Baudelaire possessed an unusually nuanced and rich vocabulary which he used to create vivid descriptions and metaphors derived from the various senses. We note (A) that his vocabulary for smells was unusually precise as well as unusually large. And, we further note that (B) both the words and the overall rhythm of his poems produced an unusually musical tonality in many poems that has seldom been matched by other poets.
Two, as hinted above, the persona of Baudelaire intrudes into his life and works in diverse and unpredictable fashion. Explicitly, this means that among other things, ab initio, we are faced with the fact that Baudelaire’s Roman Catholicism is present on the ground floor of Baudelaire’s aesthetics. However, as alluded to earlier, Baudelaire’s Roman Catholicism is nothing if not inconsistent. And, even more importantly, Baudelaire’s self-understanding of his Roman Catholicism is, usually, also opaque. We begin, then, with a tentative proviso that Baudelaire, apparently, did not always want to be consistent.
Three, as we explore Baudelaire principles we will find that he makes some very sophisticated epistemological and psychological arguments that are strikingly parallel to lines of thought that have been extensively developed by such thinkers as Nietzsche, Freud, Pascal, and Chomsky. We will not always pursue these parallel lines of inquiry, but we will leave some hints for the interested reader to follow.
We will not be able to explore many of these issues in great detail here. However, we can begin to show that a more careful look at Baudelaire’s own words combined with a more informed view of his life and a deeper understanding at his frequently misunderstood insular and inconsistent Roman Catholicism can provide a deeper appreciation of his all-too-human struggles. Indeed, I intend to argue elsewhere that —in spite of his deep human flaws and its simplified “aesthetics” — his very powerful poetry is much more relevant to modern moral issues than a merely “poetic” aesthetics.
Caveat Lecteur: The actual deconstruction of the complex interactions between Baudelaire’s aesthetics as articulated in the eight essays discussed here and their actual implementation in Baudelaire’s poetry requires unusually complex epistemological considerations — several of then articulated or alluded to in overly brief remarks by Baudelaire in these eight essays. Our discussion here is focused on the principles themselves.
Aesthetic and Philosophical Terms: Definitions and Elaborations [
in medias res]
Weltanschauung — A German term which can be literally translated as a “World View” or, more generally, as a universal philosophical or intellectual perspective. The German term is preferred here because the German “philosophical” understanding of the the spirit (the mind’s world) [German “
Geist”] is much broader than comparable English words (psychology, philosophy…) for studies of the mind, the self, the soul, or the psyche. In addition, German words such as
Geist and
Weltanschauung are more neutral [presupposing a decent respect for the belief or even faith of all humankind] and usually implicate both conscious and unconscious predispositions. With particular reference to our study here, we emphasize that Baudelaire’s somewhat dated “Metaphysics” is to be understood as a somewhat insular
Weltanschauung — derived from his education within the French Roman Catholic cultural enclave. [
i.e., we can criticize his metaphysics after making a serious to understand it.;
Cf., [also] Wikipedia for amplification of Weltanschauung.]
[To be continued]
Baudelaire’s Sensorium: The Sensory World as Described by Baudelaire — Verbal Building Blocks for Touch, Smell, Hearing, and Vision
The invariable starting point for Baudelaire’s poems are experienced events. These events may be relatively direct sensations (“sensory events”) — altho Baudelaire is rarely interested in sensations alone. However, in most cases the ‘sensory’ words are also used as metaphors of varying abstractness. Because Baudelaire’s exquisite command of such ‘sensory’ terminology can be described as that of a premier wordsmith of the highest order, a few sentences about his use of several major modalities of sensation are in order. In the main we will confine ourselves a couple of paragraphs and brief notes about the 4 “worlds” of touch, smell, hearing, and vision.
Baudelaire’s Sensorium: The world of smell.
Baudelaire’s vocabulary of smell (smells, odors, scents, fragrances …) is extraordinary. When he describes the fragrance of a flower — he often refers to the individual species. In some instances, his vocabulary suggests that you might be attending a convention of perfume producers or a secret meeting of the world’s highest paid courtesans. His precision is simply beyond that of many of his listeners, but his ability to produce an olfactory background (or “ambience”) suitable to his theme is usually an integral part of his poetic narrative.
Cf.,
Parfum exotique/Exotic Perfume;
Le Flacon/The Vial;
La Chevelure/Her Hair;
Baudelaire’s Sensorium: The world of touch.
Baudelaire’s poetry is often accompanied by tactile details especially pertinent to his stories. His celebration or disappointments with love affairs are naturally accompanied by tactile elements as are his descriptions of cold female idols made of “stone” or “ivory” or “gold”. Animals, too — especially cats — curl up and extend their paws and claws as they purr, murmur, scratch, and otherwise interact with humans.
Cf.,
Le Chat/The Cat;
Les Chats/The Cats;
La Beauté/Beauty;
La Géante/The Giantesse;
Baudelaire’s Sensorium: The auditory world.
Baudelaire’s auditory world is, likewise, extraordinarily rich. Besides the use of auditory descriptions and metaphors, the rhythm of his poems often create a texture (“tonality’) which may amplify the poems words — or, create intriguing contrasts and tensions between the text and its cadence. A few poems are dominated by whispered words uttered deep into the shadows of the nite. The poem, Confession, an account of a beautiful woman confiding to a friend the usually hidden price or, even curse, of being regarded as ‘beautiful’ is — to my mind — almost totally dominated by its sense of shared whispered revelations.
Cf.,
Confession/The Confession;
La Vie antérieure/The Former Life;
Baudelaire’s Sensorium: The visual world.
Baudelaire’s visual details — similar to his use of other sensory details — include sensations and numerous metaphors. One striking feature of a few of his poems is that, for me, they can be utterly dominated by a set of visual images constructed with a few lines of the pen. The poems
Le Cygne/The Swan and
L’Albatros/The Albatross are, perhaps, his best examples of such dominant visual metaphors. A struggling swan is seen as an exemplar of suffering women; the albatross in flight is seen as the emblem of a poet liberated to sing. Even while listening to these poem my mind is still possessed by the text. Interestingly enough, when Baudelaire speaks of art, literature, painting, or sculpture he himself use the word “Color” as a metaphor for a necessary component of all art. In spite of the fact that he himself was the unrivaled maestro of the spoken poem, he instinctively recognized that the visual sense is the primary immediate “sense” in our attempts to understand the (outside) world.
Cf..
L’Albatros/The Albatross;
Le Cygne/The Swan;
Future Work!?: The Sensoria of Diane Ackerman and Baudelaire Compared
