You have to be always drunk. That’s all there is to it
it’s the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden
of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth,
you have to be continually drunk.
But on what?
Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.
Baudelaire is an incredibly powerful poet. My favorite is "L'Albatros", this poem leaves me speechless every time.
The Albatross
Often, to amuse themselves, the men of a crew
Catch albatrosses, those vast sea birds
That indolently follow a ship
As it glides over the deep, briny sea.
Scarcely have they placed them on the deck
Than these kings of the sky, clumsy, ashamed,
Pathetically let their great white wings
Drag beside them like oars.
That winged voyager, how weak and gauche he is,
So beautiful before, now comic and ugly!
One man worries his beak with a stubby clay pipe;
Another limps, mimics the cripple who once flew!
The poet resembles this prince of cloud and sky
Who frequents the tempest and laughs at the bowman;
When exiled on the earth, the butt of hoots and jeers,
His giant wings prevent him from walking.
I studied this poem back in high school (in France).
I have mixed feeling about it. I said "studied", but I really meant "had to study". There's something about school's treatment of the subject that just robs the poem of any power. Maybe it's because as teenagers we likely didn't have the life experience for it to resonate with us. Even now, I can vaguely sense it but am numb to it. On the other hand, I'm glad I have been introduced to such poetry, as I think it helps me later in life to appreciate the finer things.
Also, did you know Baudelaire's translation of Poe's work brought it french recognition? (I earlier got it the wrong way around, thinking Poe had translated Baudelaire)
I had to study a corpus of 30 texts for the bac as well a couple months ago. I certainly understand how you feel... (I am glad to be done with high-school)
I don't blame the teachers because it is true that most literary masterpieces are hard to tackle the "right way" especially when there is a standard final examination that students have to be prepared for.
I was lucky enough to have a very passionate teacher during my senior year of high-school who introduced me to some really exciting readings, and had enough charisma to capture the imagination of a room full of troubled teenagers. That is one of my fondest memory so far.
As far as I can remember, I always liked L'Albatros. Although I have to admit that the original version resonates a lot more with myself.
The slower pace of the last few sentences are like a kiss of death, a condemnation at the end of a trial: unquestionable and absolute.
You can almost feel the tears tearing Baudelaire apart. It's glorious in its very own morbidity. I just love it :)
> I had to study a corpus of 30 texts for the bac as well a couple months ago. I certainly understand how you feel... (I am glad to be done with high-school)
Bravo! I'm curious though: 15 years ago the french part was done a year earlier than the rest. Is it common to do everything together nowadays, or was your curriculum a bit different?
Wine can conceal a sordid room
In rich, miraculous disguise,
And make such porticoes arise
Out of its flushed and crimson fume
As makes the sunset in the skies.
Opium the infinite enlarges,
And lengthens all that is past measure.
It deepens time, and digs its treasure,
With sad, black raptures it o'ercharges
The soul, and surfeits it with pleasure.
Neither are worth the drug so strong
That you distil from your green eyes,
Lakes where I see my soul capsize
Head downwards: and where, in one throng,
I slake my dreams, and quench my sighs.
But to your spittle these seem naught —
It stings and burns. It steeps my thought
And spirit in oblivious gloom,
And, in its dizzy onrush caught,
Dashes it on the shores of doom.
Ωtranslated by Roy Campbell, Poems of Baudelaire
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)
Le Poison
Le vin sait revêtir le plus sordide bouge
D'un luxe miraculeux,
Et fait surgir plus d'un portique fabuleux
Dans l'or de sa vapeur rouge,
Comme un soleil couchant dans un ciel nébuleux.
L'opium agrandit ce qui n'a pas de bornes,
Allonge l'illimité,
Approfondit le temps, creuse la volupté,
Et de plaisirs noirs et mornes
Remplit l'âme au delà de sa capacité.
Tout cela ne vaut pas le poison qui découle
De tes yeux, de tes yeux verts,
Lacs où mon âme tremble et se voit à l'envers...
Mes songes viennent en foule
Pour se désaltérer à ces gouffres amers.
Tout cela ne vaut pas le terrible prodige
De ta salive qui mord,
Qui plonge dans l'oubli mon âme sans remords,
Et charriant le vertige,
La roule défaillante aux rives de la mort!
Yes, I'm French and I agree. The message is well translated, but the original is made with much more precision, and it is more gracious. But English has some nice poetry, I like Whitman and e. e. cummings. When it comes to French, I'd recommend this classic from Victor Hugo, Tomorrow at dawn, it's simple but human, and the translation is fair, it's dedicated to his daughter:
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/972635-tomorrow-at-dawn-the...
There's also this poem of Baudelaire about female homosexuality, which I like, Damned women, also called Delphine and Hippolyta. His whole book "Les fleurs du mal" (The Flowers of Evil) was heresy at the time (1860), it was about the beauty of evil, well, in part. There are English versions there but it's not easy to translate: http://fleursdumal.org/poem/180
I don't find it strange to claim that this is Baudelaire's work. Of course the style and the rhymes makes it very different compared to the original version. I also think that translation has altered the poem's beauty but the message is still here, the story is the same and it leaves me with the same humbled feelings.
