Liberal Arts Blog — Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) Master Of Poetry And Prose
Liberal Arts Blog — Tuesday is the Joy of Literature, Language, Religion, and Culture Day
Today’s Topic: Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) Master of Poetry and Prose
As a high school student, I was a huge fan of Baudelaire’s poetry, but had no idea that he also wrote essays. This week I happened upon three of his prose sentences that blew
me away. They are the respective titles of Parts One, Two, and Three of today’s post. Beneath the titles are lines from some of his most famous poems. Just decided to mix it up a little. Are you a fan? Favorite lines? Who is your most beloved 19th century poet from any country on the planet? How about from any era, any country ever?
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
“THE DEVIL’S CLEVEREST TRICK IS CONVINCING YOU THAT HE DOES NOT EXIST” (“La plus belle des ruses du diable est qu’il n’existe pas.”)
1. “Nature is a temple from which living pillars let slip from time to time uncertain words.” (“La nature est un temple ou de vivants piliers laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles.”
2. “Man finds his way through forests of symbols which look at him through familiar gazes.” (L’homme y passe a travers des forets de symboles qui l’observent avec des regards familiers.)
3. “I am beautiful, you mortals, like a dream of stone.” (Je suis Belle, o mortels, comme un reve de pierre.”
NB: “There, all is order and beauty only, splendor, peace, and pleasure.” (“La, tout n’est qu’ordre et beaute, Luxe, calme et volupte.”
“GENIUS IS NOTHING MORE THAN CHILDHOOD, RECAPTURED AT WILL” (“Le genie n’est que l’enfance retrouve a volonte.)
1. “Childhood now gifted to express itself with the faculties of manhood and with the analytic mind that allows him to give order to the heap of unwittingly hoarded material.” (L’enfance douee maintenant pour s’exprimer d’organes virils et de l’esprit analytique qui lui permet d’ordonner la somme de materiaux involontairement amasee.)
2. “Get drunk. Always drunk. The whole story. The only question.” (“Enivrez vous. Il faut etre toujours ivre. Tout est la. C’est l’unique question.”)
3. “To not feel the horrible burden of time which cause your shoulders to droop toward the earth, you must get drunk without a break.” (“Pour ne pas sentir l’horrible fardeau due Temps qui brise vos epaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans treve.”
NB: “But with what? With wine, poetry, virtue, whatever, it’s up to you. Just get drunk.” (Mais de quoi? De vin, de poesie, ou de vertu, a votre guise. Mais enivrez vous.”
YOU GAVE ME YOUR MUD, I HAVE TURNED IT INTO GOLD “(Tu m’a donne ta boue, j’en ai fais de l’or.” (below portrait of Baudelaire by Gustave Courbet)
1. “The poet is like a prince among the clouds who scoffs at archers and loves a stormy day.” (Le poete est semblable au prince des nues, qui hante les tempetes et rie de l’archer)
2. “But exiled on earth, among the hooting crowds, he can not walk, his wings get in the way.” (“Exile sur le sol, au milieu des hues, ses ailes de geant l’empeche de marcher.”)
FOOTNOTE — Biographical Tidbits — dandy, profligate, below portrait at age 23 by Emile Duroy (1820–1846)
1. “His father, Joseph-François Baudelaire (1759–1827), a senior civil servant and amateur artist, who at 60, was 34 years older than Baudelaire’s 26-year-old mother, Caroline (née Dufaÿs) (1794–1871).”
2. “Joseph-François died during Baudelaire’s childhood, at rue Hautefeuille, Paris, on 10 February 1827. The following year, Caroline married Lieutenant Colonel Jacques Aupick, who later became a French ambassador to various noble courts.”
3. His mother’s second marriage devastated the young boy — depriving him of his mother’s sole attention. “Baudelaire regularly begged his mother for money throughout his career, often promising that a lucrative publishing contract or journalistic commission was just around the corner.”
NB: His mother, for her part, always wished that her son had chosen law or diplomacy rather than literature. “Oh, what grief! If Charles had let himself be guided by his stepfather, his career would have been very different … He would not have left a name in literature, it is true, but we should have been happier, all three of us.”
PS: Baudelaire was a huge fan of Edgar Allan Poe and translated his works into french. In his essays, he promoted the work of the painter Eugene Delacroix and the composer Richard Wagner. He was close friends with Edouard Manet in his later years. And with photographer Nadar, who write his obituary in Le Figaro. See second link below for details.
Charles Baudelaire — Wikiquote
Charles Baudelaire — Wikipedia
Poetry: Enivrez-vous, Charles Baudelaire (Original with Translation.)
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
THE LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED THEMATICALLY INTO FOURTEEN BOOK-LENGTH PDFS:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
Please share the coolest thing you learned this week related to words, language, literature, religion, culture.
Or, even better, the coolest or most important thing you learned in your life related to Words, Language, Literature (eg. quotes, poetry, vocabulary) that you have not yet shared.
This is your chance to make someone else’s day. Or to cement in your own mind something that you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart. Continuity is key to depth of thought.
