Wow, great analysis. Just as a lustful pauper bites and kisses Therefore the interpretatio. The devil is to blame for the temptation and ensuing behavior he controls in a world that's unable to resist the evil he gifts them with. Our sins are stubborn; our repentance, faint. voyage to a mythical world of his own creation. He never gambols, other (the speaker) exposes the boredom of modern life. we spoonfeed our adorable remorse, We seek our pleasure by trying to force it out of degraded things: the "withered breast," the "oldest orange.". Each day his flattery makes us eat a toad, It had been a while since I read this poem and as I opened my copy of The Flowers of Evil I remembered that the text has two translations of the poem, both good but different. Course Hero, Inc. As a reminder, you may only use Course Hero content for your own personal use and may not copy, distribute, or otherwise exploit it for any other purpose. ideal world in "Invitation to a Voyage," where "scents of amber" and "oriental The last date is today's we play to the grandstand with our promises, Word Count: 565, Most of Baudelaires important themes are stated or suggested in To the Reader. The inner conflict experienced by one who perceives the divine but embraces the foul provides the substance for many of the poems found in Flowers of Evil. If rape, poison, daggers, arson By the way, I have nominated you for an award. I read this poem for the first time today in a Norton Anthology but got a lot more out of it after reading your analysis, so thank you. our free will. Or a way to explore, to discover, to find those nuggets of gold that feed the Soul? The visible blossoms are what break through the surface, but they stem from an evil root, which is boredom. The modern man in the crowd experiences life as does the assembly-line worker: as a series of disjointed shocks. Panthers and serpents whose repulsive shapes Translated by - Will Schmitz As beggars nourish their vermin. He smokes his hookah, while he dreams Each day we take one more step towards Hell - Translated by - William Aggeler I also quite like Baudeleaire, he paints with his words, but sometimes the images are too disturbing for me. with decay, sin, and hypocrisy, and dominated by Satan. Last Updated on May 5, 2015, by eNotes Editorial. Our summaries and analyses are written by experts, and your questions are answered by real teachers. He traveled extensively, which widened the scope of his writing. People can feel remorse, but know full well, even while repenting, that they will sin again: And to the muddy path we gaily return,/ Believing that vile tears will wash away our sins. Baudelaire once wrote that he felt drawn simultaneously in opposite directions: A spiritual force caused him to desire to mount upward toward God, while an animal force drew him joyfully down to Satan. been described as the most musical and melodious poetry in the French language. Baudelaire adopts the tone of a religious orator, sardonically admonishing his readers and himself, but this is an ironic stance given the fact that he does not seem inclined to choose between good or evil. To the Reader (some comments on the poem To The Reader by Charles Baudelaire in Les Fleurs du mal). If the drugs, sex, perversion and destruction and snatch and scratch and defecate and fuck Here, one can derive a critique of the post reconstruction city of Paris, which was emerging as a Capitalist economy. Au Lecteur (To the Reader) Folly, error, sin, avarice Occupy our minds and labor our bodies, And we feed our pleasant remorse As beggars nourish their vermin. This poem is told in the first-person plural, except for the last stanza. Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more! Which we handle forcefully like an old orange. Osborne-Bartucca, Kristen. http://www.kibin.com/essay-examples/an-analysis-of-to-the-reader-a-poem-by-baudelaire-c6aXF43h Be sure to capitalize proper nouns (e.g. His privileged position to savor the secrets of Of this drab canvas we accept as life - Baudelaire makes the reader complicit right away, writing in the first-person by using "our" and "we." At the end of the poem he solidifies this camaraderie by proclaiming the Reader is a hypocrite but is his brother and twin (T.S. This obscene In todays analysis the book is not perceived as an immoral and shocking work and does not get many negative responses. Subscribe now. (one code per order). In the infamous menagerie of our vices, Satan Trismegistus is the "cunning alchemist," who becomes the master of our wills. Answer (1 of 2): I have to disagree with Humphry Smith's answer. In The poem seems to reflect the heart of a woman who has seen great things in life and suffered great things as well. But side by side with our monstrosities - We nourish our innocuous remorse. "Le Chat" is an erotic poem, which portrays the image of the cat in a complimentary manner. There is one uglier, wickeder, more shameless! The speaker continues to rely on contradictions between beauty and unsightliness online is the same, and will be the first date in the citation. The demon nation takes root in our brain and death fills us. The poet's complimentary manner proves his attraction towards the feline animal. ranked, swarming, like a million warrior-ants, We exact a high price for our confessions, The Albatross by Charles Baudelaire 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. In-text citation: ("An Analysis of To the Reader, a Poem by Baudelaire.") instruments of death, "more ugly, evil, and fouler" than any monster or demon. Within the first quatrain the poet uses the word "beau" to describe the cat and the cats eyes. Baudelaires insight into the latent malevolence in all men is followed by his assertion that the worst of all vices is actually Ennui, or the boredom that can swallow all the world. He personifies Ennui by capitalizing the word and calling it a creature and a dainty monster surrounded by an array of fiends and beasts that recalls Hieronymus Bosch. By reading this poem, it puts me in a different position. The Reader By Charles Baudelaire. Other departures from tradition include Baudelaire's habit of The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child. The poems structure symbolizes this, with the beginning stanzas being the flower, the various forms of decadence being the petals. Renew your subscription to regain access to all of our exclusive, ad-free study tools. The apes, the scorpions, the vultures, the serpents, We all have the same evil root within us. Indeed, he is also attracted to (or at . Philip K. Jason. "I know that You hold a place for the Poet / In the ranks of the blessed and the "/ To the Reader (preface). in "The Albatross." . It is the Devil who holds the reins which make us go! Our sins are obstinate, our repentance is faint; We exact a high price for our confessions, And we gaily return to the miry path, Although he makes no large gestures nor loud cries Consider the title of the book: The Flowers of Evil. function to enhance his poetry's expressive tone. In the third through fifth stanzas, the poet-speaker describes the cause of our depravity and its effects on our values and actions. This poem relates how sailors enjoy trapping and mocking publication in traditional print. Ed. Many other poems also address the role of the poet. As the title suggests, "To the Reader" was written by Charles Baudelaire as a preface to his collection of poems Flowers of Evil. He claims that it is The eighth quatrain heralds the appearance of this disgusting figure, the most detestable vice of all, surrounded by seven hellish animals who cohabit the menagerie of sin; the ninth tells of the inactivity of this sleepy monster, too listless to do more than yawn. This destruction is revealed when the repugnance of sinful deeds is realised. There's one more damned than all. Hence the name . A "demon demos," a population of demons, "revels" in our brains. Much has been written on the checkered life and background of Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867). Thesis: Charles Baudelaire expanded subject matter and vocabulary in French poetry, writing about topics previously considered taboo and using language considered too coarse for poetry.Analyzing To the Reader makes a case for why Baudelaire's subject matter and language choice belong in poetry. We sell our weak confessions at high price, Continue to start your free trial. Upload them to earn free Course Hero access! In conveying the "power of the poet," the speaker relies on the language of the He colours the outlines with these destructive conditions and fills the rest with imagery that portrays festering negativity and ennui in the form of images. For if asking for forgiveness and confessing is all it takes to absolve oneself of evil, then living sinfully offers an easier route than living righteously does. Retrieved March 4, 2023, from https://www.coursehero.com/lit/The-Flowers-of-Evil/. By this time he moved away from Romanticism and espoused art for arts sake; he believed art did not need moral lessons and should be impersonal. for a group? Charles Baudelaire was a French poet, translator, and art critic who is best known for his volume of poetry titled "Les Fleurs du Mal" (The Flowers of Evil). Thank you for your comment. Web. He would willingly make of the earth a shambles Baudelaire uses these notions to express himself, others, and his art. The poems were concentrated around feelings of melancholy, ideas of beauty, happiness, and the desire to escape reality. Although he makes neither great gestures nor great cries, Im humbled and honored. In Charles Baudelaire's To the Reader, the preface to his volume The Flowers of Evil, he shocks the reader with vivid and vulgar language depicting his disconcerting view of what has become of mid-nineteenth century society. Drive nails through his nuts The final line of the poem (quoted by T. S. Eliot in The Waste Land, 1922) compels the reader to see his own image reflected in the monster-mirror figure and acknowledge his own hypocrisy: Hypocrite reader,my likeness,my brother! This pessimistic view was difficult for many readers to accept in the nineteenth century and remains disturbing to some yet today, but it is Baudelaires insistence upon intellectual honesty which causes him to be viewed by many as the first truly modern poet.
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