French poet, essayist, and critic Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) fits in between the Romantics and the Modernists--he's actually credited as the first to refer to modernity as a movement and condition of life in the increasingly urbanized world. Though still considered hugely influential, Baudelaire is not in style today.
As a Romantic, he's inspired by rich emotions, gives priority to aesthetics and nature, and--this makes him tricky to read--makes allusions to classical, medieval, and exotic stories, all while revolting against industrialization. But as a Modernist, he aimed to say and represent something about his time and defy orthodoxy. For this, he became a bit of a lightening rod, slapped with labels of indecency in his life and work. He lived hard and died at 46.
I first read Artificial Paradises, a sort of meditation on the effects of wine, hashish, and opium--all substances he indulged in until near his death, and perhaps taken in some part to medicate himself while suffering gonorrhea and syphilis. This text is neither the boasting of a stoned teenager nor the cautioning of a burnout; no, it reads like a devout aristocrat--which Baudelaire was--sunning himself in his talent for writing prose while recording for posterity a slice of his life and the strength of his intellect, hopefully to the offense of the reader.Next I read two of his books of petry, The Flowers of Evil and Paris Spleen (combined in one volume by BOA Editions, Ltd.). The Flowers of Evil is Baudelaire's best-known work; here he glides beautifully over a range of subjects. And while he can summon fine porcelain words to capture the mood that strikes on a particular lovely evening, he can also express a healthy sense of disgust for things, and this I enjoy very much. The works in Paris Spleen are considered prose-poems, which are basically short, stream-of-conscious vignettes and random blurbs.
Artificial Paradises I can take or leave, but the The Flowers of Evil and Paris Spleen collections proved enjoyable, though only after a couple evenings spent flipping through them over again.
Notes:
(from The Flowers of Evil)
"The Grateful Dead"
by Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)
Somewhere, in a country lush and fat with snails,
I wish that I might myself a narrow grave
Where my old bones, at leisure, could stretch out a while
And sleep, oblivious like sharks beneath the wave.
Last wills and testaments I hate, and tombs I hate;
And rather than implore the world to weep for me,
While I'm still living I'd be happy to invite
The crows to drain my blood from my carcass's debris.
O worms! black comrades without ears or even eyes,
Behold, there comes to you a free and joyful prize;
You philosophic wastrels, children of putrescence:
Within my ruins carry on without regret,
And tell me what is still to come, what novel torments
For this, my soulless corpse, this dead among the dead!
(from Paris Spleen)
"Get Drunk"
by Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)
Always be drunk. That's it! The great imperative! In order not to feel Time's horrid fardel bruise your shoulders, grinding you into the earth, get drunk and stay that way.
On What? Wine, poetry, virtue, whatever. But get drunk.
And if you sometimes happen to wake up on the porches of a palace, in the green grass of a ditch, in the dismal loneliness of your own room your drunkenness gone or disappearing, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, ask everything that flees, everything that groans or rolls or sings, everything that speaks, ask what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will answer you: "Time to get drunk! Don't be martyred slaves of Time, get drunk forever! Get drunk! Stay drunk! On Wine, poetry, virtue, whatever."
