Baudelaire: Bard of the Brain's Badlands

            On Wednesday morning I skipped rehearsal except for part of one song. After that I got into the final stretch of writing my essay. It was basically done but there were a few little tweaks that came up each time I read it through. Almost every time I made a change it was either a little bit over or under the maximum word count and so I would take out superfluous words or add something. At 9:00 I went back to bed for a little over half an hour. When I got up I numbered the lines on my translation so I could more easily cite them. The MLA guide wasn’t exactly clear on how I should cite numbered lines and so I just tried to make it as easy for Professor Li to understand as possible and hoped it was going to be all right. I spent an hour memorizing my translation and made some small adjustments as I went along.

            At 13:10 I headed for class. There were a few students already in the room when I arrived. I sat writing about the previous day while waiting for the professor to get there.

            We started by finishing our discussion of  “Les petites vielles” by Charles Baudelaire.

            She said of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal (The Evil Flowers) that the poems are stark and dynamic. Beauty is no longer about what is pleasing to the eye. It has to do with art and sensory impact. Beauty becomes identified with evil. This approach forces us to see sin, artificiality and morbidity as beautiful but it’s not what would charm the middle class. Baudelaire is taking on and trying to shock complacency and the sense of progress held by the bourgeoisie. Baudelaire sees sin, desolation and morbidity as artistically valuable.

            Baudelaire connects seeing and feeling. Tactile presence is yoked with active viewing. One must feel part of viewing acuteness in order to see through feeling. To feel is to see and to fuse perspective with bodily response.

            For Baudelaire the sense of virtue is no longer a quality. It’s important to respond to what can move you and to have the capacity for feelings.

            The old women in “Les petites vielles” are virtuous. “Come love them! As they are still souls although broken”.

            This is more than social criticism. It is about viewing.

            At this point Professor Li asked me to do my presentation. I asked if I should read my translation. She hesitated, commenting that it’s a bit long but then said okay.

Dear Reader

Stupidity, folly, mean stinginess and sin,

Weigh upon our bodies and occupy our brains,

We use them to feed our accommodating shame,

the way beggars nourish their own little vermin.                         

                       

Our sins are pig headed, our repentance has no spine;                

When we confess we charge ourselves a handsome tax,

And then we step gaily back on our muddy path,

Believing vulgar tears will wash away the grime.                        

There on evil’s pillow is Satan Trismegistus

Who lulls our dull minds with enchantment every hour,           

And the rich metal ore that is our willpower

Is transformed to vapour by this wise alchemist.                        

The Devil’s the one pulling on the strings that jerk us!

To repulsive objects we think to be sweet charms;

Each day we step closer down to infernal harm,                        

Sans horror we traverse the foul stinking darkness.                    

Like a poor debaucher kissing and then gorging

On the martyred breast of an antiquated whore,

We steal a quick handful of underground pleasure

As we squeeze flesh tough as an old dried up orange.                

Tightly pullulating like a million helminths,

Inside our brains a horde of demons has its fun,

And on each breath that comes, Death slithers in our lungs

And with our lame complaints, down the phantom rill sails in.  

If the will to poison, burn buildings, stab and rape,                     

Has yet to become stitched with the embroidery

On the banal canvas of our pitied destinies,

It’s because our souls, alas, are just a tad afraid.

But here with the jackals, the panthers, the bitches,

The monkeys, the serpents, the scorpions, the vultures,             

All the yelping, howling, growling, creeping monsters,

In the menagerie of our cold debauches,

There is one more ugly, more wicked, more of dirt!

Though he’s not the loudest nor grand in expression,

He’d give in to break down the land to devastation                    

And with one little yawn would swallow up the Earth;

It’s Ennui! With eyes charged by unconscious weeping,

He dreams of scaffolds while smoking his hookah.

You know him dear reader, that delicate monster,

Hypocrite reader – my fellow man – my sibling!                    

            Then I read my seminar starter:

 The Reason in Rhyme

In “Au Lecteur” Charles Baudelaire uses rhyme to perform several important functions that a free verse translation of the poem could not accomplish. The enclosed rhyming couplet in the middle of each quatrain symbolizes our dual nature of penitent and libertine. The couplet is confined by rhymes above and below, representing our morally polluted environment. The iambic hexameter Alexandrine lines put more distance between the top and bottom rhymes of each stanza than iambic pentameter. This extension takes reading each line almost beyond breathing comfort; places the rhymes further from memory, momentarily disorienting us, and making our journey through this underworld of the self more difficult. As the poem progresses we are presented with problems generated by the Petrarchan style quatrains, with no sestet for resolution. The rhymes lighten the gravity of this situation but the only answer lies at the end when the author rhymes himself with the reader.

I had two questions for the group. The first was, “Why is god not mentioned in the poem?”

Professor Li thought it was a very good question. It stimulated some discussion. I thought it was interesting that Satan is in the poem with no counterpoint. I have read that Baudelaire believed that humanity had sunk so far from god that it’s no longer a consideration anymore.

My second question was, “In the first stanza, is Baudelaire saying that remorse is more contemptible than sin?” I said that he compares remorse to vermin that are being fed by our sin and comparing anything to vermin is pretty contemptuous. There is a sense that all we have to do when we have done something wrong is to feel badly about it, which is a bit cheap of us.

I think the professor liked my poem and my presentation.

We looked at the poem “Baudelaire” by Eugene Lee Hamilton. It’s descriptive but distant and it has a lack of energy like an after dinner poem. He simply names colours rather than describing the colour and its effect. The poem doesn’t make us uncomfortable enough to be a proper tribute to Baudelaire. I hadn’t noticed that it’s a sonnet, probably because the sestet is on the next page in our course pack.

We looked at “Ave atque Vale: In Memory of Charles Baudelaire” by Algernon Charles Swinburne. Professor Li said it’s a pastoral elegy that Swinburne wrote for Baudelaire after being falsely informed that Baudelaire had died. But apparently Baudelaire actually did die before Swinburne published it.

In a traditional pastoral elegy the poet poses as a shepherd addressing the deceased as having been also a shepherd. There is a verse in which the poet asks the guardians of the dead why they hadn’t been there to prevent the death. There is a procession. There is a flower passage. There is a reflection on divine justice. The ending is a renewal of hope and joy. Writing a pastoral elegy is a way to attempt to escape death.

The first stanza sets the tone. The poem searches for death and wants to keep it around.

In my opinion the poem is full of too much alliteration with the “F” sound. I told the professor that in places it sounds like Dr. Seuss. She thought that was cute.

Marco observed that this poem could easily have just been about Baudelaire’s art and Swinburne’s inability to reach it.

I handed in my essay:

We got no class and we got no principals and we got no innocence

We can’t even think of a word that rhymes – Alice Cooper

The Reason in the Rhyme of “Au Lecteur” by Charles Baudelaire

In “Au Lecteur” Charles Baudelaire uses rhyme to perform several important functions that a free verse translation of the poem could not accomplish (Baudelaire 2-3). The rhyming of the couplet in each quatrain symbolizes the connection between the halves of our dual nature of penitent and libertine in the circumstance of repeated indulgence in vices that serve as food for the parasite of remorse (Christian 3-4). The rhymes above and below the couplets in the ABBA scheme represent the morally polluted environment that surrounds and corrupts us. The Alexandrine metrical structure in iambic hexameter puts more distance between the top and bottom rhymes of each stanza than there would be in a more songlike iambic pentameter poem (Hamilton 20). This separation makes their connection easier to forget, thereby creating the effect of momentary disorientation in our journey though this quotidian underworld. The voyage is made more difficult by the extra iambic foot in each line that takes reading them beyond relaxed breathing comfort. As we are adjusting to a more epic pattern of respiration we are also faced with the problems the extended lines present to us in combination as Petrarchan style quatrains. Unlike a sonnet there are no overt resolutions to the troubles that these quatrains generate, such as the manifestations of Satan with no mention of god to serve as their counterpoint and rhyme (Christian 9, 13, 23). To lighten the gravity of this circumstance the rhythmic harmonization of word sounds serves as elevator music for the reader’s descent to the darkness of his nature. Rhymes resist the gravity of the situation by providing the reader with a set of cadent flapping wings to slow his descent to the morass of the human condition. Rhymes offer the only hint of resolution in this poem with the final rhyme being that of the author with the reader (Christian 40).

After class Professor Li asked me how long it took me to write my translation. I told her a couple of days. I mentioned that I translate a lot of French songs and she asked if that’s what I do for a living.

When I got home and was just inside my building door there was a knock and I saw it was Peter Janes. I opened the door and we chatted for a few minutes. He wanted to know how my photos of him taking apart the skeleton of the burnt garbage bin turned out. I told him I’d friend him on Facebook and tag him with the photos. He said he’s a camera technician on film sets. He was going to perform at Fat Albert’s later that night. I told him to say “Hi” to Glen Garry.

I had a hard time finding Peter’s Facebook page because I’d always thought his name was Peter James. It was only after scrolling through the postings on the Fat Albert’s Facebook page that I saw the real spelling of his name.

I had a late lunch of pretzels.

That night for dinner I had the rest of my ham with some cheese in a sandwich and watched two episodes of Wanted Dead or Alive starring Steve McQueen.

The first story was a Christmas episode, which is rare for western shows. A boy named Laddie approaches Josh on Christmas Eve just as he’s about to head for Christmas dinner with an attractive woman in Butte, Montana. Laddie knows that Josh is a bounty hunter who finds people for a living and he offers him eight cents to find Santa Clause for him. He says he’s sent several letters but Santa has never brought him what he’s asked for. Laddie won’t tell Josh what he wants. Josh doesn’t say he will help him but the other men at the bar think it’s funny to assure Laddie that Josh indeed will find Santa for him. Before Josh can tell him otherwise Laddie thinks that he’s agreed to help him, thanks him enthusiastically and leaves. Josh doesn’t have the heart to tell him and so he tries to find someone to pose as Santa that he can bring to the boy’s house. Ben, the local drunk volunteers and promises to stay sober. Josh goes to the house with Ben and keeps him in the barn to wait for a signal. Josh has dinner with the family. He learns that the boy’s father used to be a prosperous sheep farmer but wolves have taken half his stock. Josh signals for Ben in the window but he doesn’t come. He finds him in the barn drunk on horse liniment. Meanwhile a drifter shows up at the door asking for shelter from the snowstorm and so they take him in. On Christmas morning the drifter is gone and has left a Winchester rifle behind. This is apparently what Laddie has been asking Santa to bring to his father every year so he can fight off the wolves. The thing is that the doors were double bolted from the inside and the drifter couldn’t have left without leaving the door unlocked. In the fireplace they find sleighbells.
            Laddie was played by Jay North, who was Dennis the Menace on TV in the 1950s. 

The second story is about a couple of prospectors named Frank and Dixon that have become mail thieves. They’ve shot and killed one mailman on the trail already. What they are looking for is a $20,000 diamond that they know is going to be delivered to Tucson. Josh is hired to protect Jarvis, the latest carrier but the thieves shoot and wound Jarvis in the mountains. Jarvis manages to wound Dixon and then takes shelter in the desert mountains but with no water. Frank goes into town to get water. Meanwhile Josh is approached by the leader of a religious settlement who asks him to recover a bottle of holy water from the River Jordan that is also in the mail. The owner of the diamond hires Frank to help Josh find the missing mailman. When they arrive in the mountains Dixon fires at them. Frank sneaks up and kills him and then goes with Josh to find Jarvis. Jarvis is dead but his bag with the diamond is there. Frank clubs Josh and knocks him unconscious. Frank tries to get away but he’s out of water. Josh recovers and survives by drinking some of the holy water. By the time he finds Frank he is so thirsty he trades the diamond for a drink. There are only a few drops left when the pastor gets the bottle but he’s grateful that it saved Josh’s life.