Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) Read online

  Lloyd, R., Baudelaire’s World (Bloomington, IN, Cornell University Press, 2002)

  Pichois, C., with additional research by J. Ziegler, abridged and translated by G. Robb, Baudelaire (London, Hamish Hamilton, 1989)

  Starkie, E., Baudelaire (London, Faber & Faber, 1957; Penguin Books, 1971)

  Sartre, J.-P., Baudelaire (Paris, 1947)

  CRITICAL STUDIES

  Benjamin, W., Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism (1935, 1939, 1955; translated from the German by H. Zohn, London, Verso, 1983)

  Burton, R., Baudelaire in 1859: A Study in Poetic Creativity (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989)

  Chesters, G., Baudelaire and the Poetics of Craft (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988)

  Fairlie, A., Baudelaire: Les Fleurs du Mal (London, Arnold, 1960)

  Fairlie, A., Imagination and Language, edited by M. Bowie (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1979)

  Hiddleston, J., Baudelaire and Le Spleen de Paris (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1986)

  Laforgue, J., ‘Notes sur Baudelaire’, in Mélanges posthumes, edited by Ph. Bonnefis (Geneva, Slatkine, 1979)

  Leakey, F. W., Baudelaire: Les Fleurs du Mal (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, Landmarks in World Literature, 1992)

  Proust, Marcel, ‘Concerning Baudelaire’, in Against Sainte-Beuve and Other Essays, translated by John Sturrock (Penguin Books 1988)

  BACKGROUND AND GENERAL CRITICISM

  Broome, J. P., and Chesters, G., The Appreciation of Modern French Poetry (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1976)

  Gibson, R., Modern French Poets on Poetry: An Anthology (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1961, 1979)

  Lewis, R., On Reading French Verse: A Study of Poetic Form (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982)

  Lough, J. G., and Lough, M., An Introduction to Nineteenth Century France (London, Longman, 1978)

  Praz, M., The Romantic Agony (London, Oxford University Press, 1933; 2nd edn, 1951, 1970)

  Prendergast, C., Paris and the Nineteenth.Century (Oxford, Blackwell, 1992)

  Prendergast, C., ed., Nineteenth Century French Poetry: Introductions to Close Reading (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990)

  Scott, C., A Question of Syllables: Essays in Nineteenth-century French Verse (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986)

  RECORDINGS

  Les Fleurs du Mal: les pages qu’il faut connaître, lu par Pierre Blanchar (Paris, Hachette, L’Encyclopédie sonore)

  Charles Baudelaire dit par Jean Dessailly, avec la participation de Denis Manuel et Jean Vilar (Paris, Adès, 1976)

  Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal dites par Alain Moussay (texte intégral) (Paris, Claudine Ducaté Éditions, 1991)

  Les Fleurs du Mal, textes intégraux dits par Jacques Roland (Périgord, Le Livre qui parle, 1990)

  CHRONOLOGY

  1821 9 April: Charles Pierre Baudelaire is born at 13, rue Hautefeuille, Paris.

  1827 10 February: his father dies, aged sixty-seven.

  1828 His mother remarries. Her new husband, Commandant Aupick, is thirty-nine.

  1833 Baudelaire is sent as a boarder to the Collège Royal at Lyon, where the family has moved on Commandant Aupick’s promotion to lieutenant-colonel.

  1836 The family returns to Paris. Baudelaire now boards at the Collège Louis-le-Grand.

  1839 Expelled from Louis-le-Grand for disciplinary offences. Baudelaire continues to work for the baccalaureate at a private coaching establishment in the Latin Quarter, and passes it in August.

  1841 Living in rooms in Paris, Baudelaire is beginning to make friendships in the literary world. His irregular lifestyle alarms his parents and they send him on a long sea voyage to India.

  1842 On his return to Paris, he resumes his literary lifestyle, living for a time on the Ile St-Louis and making friends of Theophile Gautier and Theodore de Banville. Begins what was to be a lifetime affair with Jeanne Duval (or Prosper or Lemer), a bit-part actress in small theatres.

  1844 At his mother’s request, Baudelaire’s finances are put under the permanent control of a lawyer (a ‘conseil judiciare’).

  1845 First published works: ‘Salon de 1845’, a poem and a short article on Balzac. After a suicide attempt on 30 June, Baudelaire returns to live in the house of his stepfather, now General Aupick, at the prestigious address of 7, place Vendôme. After a few weeks, however, he moves out again, to a furnished room.

  1846 Publishes ‘Salon de 1846’ and some poems.

  1847 Publishes ‘La Fanfarlo’ and some poems. His portrait by Courbet is refused by the Salon.

  1848 Confused involvement in the revolution of that year. Publishes in both left- and right-wing papers. Accepts the editorship of a right-wing paper published in a small provincial town, then returns to Paris a week later. General Aupick is appointed ambassador to Constantinople.

  1850 Frequent changes of address, journalism, some poems published in magazines.

  1851 General Aupick appointed ambassador to Madrid. Coup d’état: Louis Napoleon Bonaparte becomes Emperor Napoleon III.

  1852 Baudelaire publishes a critical essay on Poe (the first in France) in the important Revue de Paris, and begins to publish translations of Poe’s tales and essays. His obsession with Mme Sabatier, a beautiful and intelligent demi-mondaine, begins. In December he sends her, anonymously, the first of a series of poems.

  1853 Publishes more translations of Poe, sends more poems to Mme Sabatier. General Aupick is appointed to the Senate and he and his wife return to Paris.

  1854 Magazine publication of his complete translation of Poe’s tales between July 1854 and April 1855. Friendship with the successful actress Marie Daubrun, but intermittent cohabitation with Jeanne Duval and anonymous poetic courtship of Mme Sabatier continue.

  1855 Constant moves: six changes of address between March and April. 1 June: the Revue des Deux Mondes (a highly regarded journal) publishes eighteen of Baudelaire’s poems under the name Les Fleurs du Mal: the first appearance of this title.

  1856 Publication in book form of Poe’s Histoires Extraordinaires.

  1857 28 April: death of General Aupick. His wife retires to the seaside at Honfleur. 25 June: publication of Les Fleurs du Mal (cover price 3 francs).

  5 July: violently hostile review in Le Figaro.

  16 July: the edition is impounded and the author and publishers charged with an offence against public morals.

  20 August: guilty verdict, Baudelaire is fined 300 francs. The book can only be put on sale again if six poems are physically removed.

  24 August: publication of Baudelaire’s first prose poems.

  31 August: ending of his relationship with Mme Sabatier.

  1858 Health difficulties. Magazine publication of some poems and essays.

  1859 Baudelaire spends several highly productive periods at his mother’s house at Honfleur, and speaks of going to live there permanently. At the same time, he lives intermittently with Jeanne Duval in Paris. Publication of several important articles and poems.

  1860 Publication in book form of Les Paradis Artificiels (Baudelaire’s essays on wine, hashish and opium) and, in magazines, of further poems including ‘Le Cygne’.

  1861 Second edition of Les Fleurs du Mal, including thirty-five new poems. Baudelaire stands, unsuccessfully, for election to the Académie Française.

  1862–3 Magazine publication of poems, essays, translations, art criticism.

  1864–5 Six prose poems published in Le Figaro. 24 April: Baudelaire travels to Brussels to give a series of lectures and to negotiate with Belgian publishers. None of his initiatives is successful and his health is failing. Apart from a brief trip back to Paris and Honfleur in July 1865, he remains in Belgium, avoiding his French creditors.

  1866 March: collapses in the church of St-Loup at Namur. From then on his health deteriorates rapidly: one side of his body is paralysed and he progressively loses the power of speech. April: his friend and publisher Poulet-Malassis bring
s out a slim volume, Les Epaves, which includes the six poems excised from Les Fleurs du Mal, and a further seventeen new poems, with a frontispiece by Félicien Rops.

  July: Baudelaire is brought back to Paris, accompanied by his mother, and placed in a clinic.

  1867 31 August: Baudelaire dies. He is buried in the Cimetière Montparnasse, in the grave bought ten years before for General Aupick. The gravestone describes him as the general and ambassador’s stepson, making no mention of his literary career. As Baudelaire died intestate, a relative on his father’s side claims his estate, and the rights to his entire work are sold at auction in December 1867, fetching 1,750 francs.

  1868 Publication of the Petits Poèmes en Prose and the final edition of Les Fleurs du Mal. Les Epaves is banned by the Belgian courts and all surviving copies are ordered to be destroyed. Poulet-Malassis is condemned in absentia to a year in jail and a 500-franc fine.

  1871 16 August: Mme Aupick dies and is buried in the family grave. Her inscription describes her as the general’s widow and ‘mère de Charles Baudelaire’.

  LES FLEURS DUMAL

  (Flowers of Evil)

  1 Au Lecteur

  La sottise, l’erreur, le péché, la lésine,

  Occupent nos esprits et travaillent nos corps,

  Et nous alimentons nos aimables remords,

  Comme les mendiants nourrissent leur vermine.

  Nos péchés sont têtus, nos repentirs sont lâches;

  Nous nous faisons payer grassement nos aveux,

  Et nous rentrons gaiement dans le chemin bourbeux,

  Croyant par de vils pleurs laver toutes nos taches.

  Sur l’oreiller du mal c’est Satan Trismégiste

  Qui berce longuement notre esprit enchanté,

  Et le riche métal de notre volonté

  Est tout vaporisé par ce savant chimiste.

  C’est le Diable qui tient les fils qui nous remuent!

  Aux objets répugnants nous trouvons des appas;

  Chaque jour vers l’Enfer nous descendons d’un pas,

  Sans horreur, à travers des ténèbres qui puent.

  Ainsi qu’un débauché pauvre qui baise et mange

  Le sein martyrisé d’une antique catin,

  Nous volons au passage un plaisir clandestin

  Que nous pressons bien fort comme une vieille orange.

  Serré, fourmillant, comme un million d’helminthes,

  Dans nos cerveaux ribote un peuple de Démons,

  Et, quand nous respirons, la Mort dans nos poumons

  Descend, fleuve invisible, avec de sourdes plaintes.

  Si le viol, le poison, le poignard, l’incendie,

  N’ont pas encor brodé de leurs plaisants dessins

  Le canevas banal de nos piteux destins,

  C’est que notre âme, hélas! n’est pas assez hardie.

  Mais parmi les chacals, les panthères, les lices,

  Les singes, les scorpions, les vautours, les serpents,

  Les monstres glapissants, hurlants, grognants, rampants,

  Dans la ménagerie infâme de nos vices,

  Il en est un plus laid, plus méchant, plus immonde!

  Quoiqu’il ne pousse ni grands gestes ni grands cris,

  Il ferait volontiers de la terre un débris

  Et dans un bâillement avalerait le monde;

  C’est l’Ennui! – l’œil chargé d’un pleur involontaire,

  Il rêve d’échafauds en fumant son houka.

  Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat,

  – Hypocrite lecteur, – mon semblable, – mon frère!

  * * *

  To the Reader

  Stupidity, error, sin, meanness fill up our minds and work upon our bodies, and we keep our dear pangs of remorse well fed, as beggars support their vermin.

  Our sins are stubborn, our moments of repentance feeble; we demand a fat reward for our confessions, and set out cheerfully again on the muddy path, thinking to wash away all our stains with cheap tears.

  On the pillow of evil it is thrice-great Satan who keeps our bewitched spirit long slumbering, and the rich metal of our will-power is all turned to vapour by that master of chemistry.

  The strings that move us are held by the Devil! We find charm in disgusting things; every day we go a step further down towards Hell, without horror, through stinking darkness.

  Like a penniless debauchee, kissing and gnawing the battered breast of an ancient whore, we steal in passing some illicit pleasure, which we squeeze very hard, like an old, dry orange.

  Packed together, seething like a million intestinal worms, in our brains a population of Demons runs riot, and when we breathe, Death, like an invisible river, goes down into our lungs with a sound of quiet complaint.

  If rope, poison, the dagger, arson have not yet embroidered their pleasing patterns on the dull canvas of our wretched fates, it is because our souls, alas, are not daring enough.

  But among the jackals, panthers, hound bitches, monkeys, scorpions, vultures, snakes, the yelping, howling, growling, crawling monsters in the infamous menagerie of our vices,

  There is one uglier, wickeder, fouler than all! He does not strike great attitudes nor utter great cries, but he would happily lay waste the earth, and swallow up the world in a yawn.

  It is Boredom! – an involuntary tear welling in his eye, he dreams of scaffolds as he smokes his hookah. You know him, reader, that fastidious monster – hypocritical reader, my fellow-man, my brother!

  SPLEEN ET IDÉAL

  (Spleen and the Ideal)

  2 (II) L’Albatros

  Souvent, pour s’amuser, les hommes d’équipage

  Prennent des albatros, vastes oiseaux des mers,

  Qui suivent, indolents compagnons de voyage,

  Le navire glissant sur les gouffres amers.

  A peine les ont-ils déposés sur les planches,

  Que ces rois de l’azur, maladroits et honteux,

  Laissent piteusement leurs grandes ailes blanches

  Comme des avirons traîner à côté d’eux.

  Ce voyageur ailé, comme il est gauche et veule!

  Lui, naguère si beau, qu’il est comique et laid!

  L’un agace son bec avec un brûle-gueule,

  L’autre mime, en boitant, l’infirme qui volait!

  Le Poète est semblable au prince des nuées

  Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l’archer;

  Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées,

  Ses ailes de géant l’empêchent de marcher.

  * * *

  The Albatross

  Often, for fun, crewmen catch albatrosses, huge seabirds, easy-moving travelling companions who follow the ship as it glides over the briny depths.

  No sooner have they set them down on the deck, than the kings of the sky, clumsy and ashamed, drop their great white wings and let them drag piteously after them like oars.

  See the winged voyager, how clumsy and feeble he is! So beautiful a moment ago, now so comical and ugly! One of them teases his beak with an old pipe, another, limping, mimics the cripple who once could fly.

  The Poet is like the prince of the clouds, who haunts the tempest and laughs at the archer. Exiled on the ground in the midst of the jeering crowd, his giant’s wings keep him from walking.

  3 (V)

  J’aime le souvenir de ces époques nues,

  Dont Phœbus se plaisait à dorer les statues.

  Alors l’homme et la femme en leur agilité

  Jouissaient sans mensonge et sans anxiété,

  Et, le ciel amoureux leur caressant l’échine,

  Exerçaient la santé de leur noble machine.

  Cybèle alors, fertile en produits généreux,

  Ne trouvait point ses fils un poids trop onéreux,

  Mais, louve au cœur gonflé de tendresses communes,

  Abreuvait l’univers à ses tétines brunes.

  L’homme, élégant, robuste et fort, avait le droit

  D’être fier des beautés qu
i le nommaient leur roi;

  Fruits purs de tout outrage et vierges de gerçures,

  Dont la chair lisse et ferme appelait les morsures!

  Le Poète aujourd’hui, quand il veut concevoir

  Ces natives grandeurs, aux lieux où se font voir

  La nudité de l’homme et celle de la femme,

  Sent un froid ténébreux envelopper son âme

  Devant ce noir tableau plein d’épouvantement.

  O monstruosités pleurant leur vêtement!

  O ridicules troncs! torses dignes de masques!

  O pauvres corps tordus, maigres, ventrus ou flasques,

  Que le dieu de l’Utile, implacable et serein,

  Enfants, emmaillota dans ses langes d’airain!

  Et vous, femmes, hélas! pâles comme des cierges,

  Que ronge et que nourrit la débauche, et vous, vierges,

  Du vice maternel traînant l’hérédité

  Et toutes les hideurs de la fécondité!

  Nous avons, il est vrai, nations corrompues,

  Aux peuples anciens des beautés inconnues:

  Des visages rongés par les chancres du cœur,

  Et comme qui dirait des beautés de langueur;

  Mais ces inventions de nos muses tardives

  N’empêcheront jamais les races maladives

  De rendre à la jeunesse un hommage profond,

  – A la sainte jeunesse, à l’air simple, au doux front,

  A l’œil limpide et clair ainsi qu’une eau courante,

  Et qui va répandant sur tout, insouciante

  Comme l’azur du ciel, les oiseaux et les fleurs,

  Ses parfums, ses chansons et ses douces chaleurs!