401. DSC 354: Modern European Classics (Charles Baudelaire)
1. Charles Baudelaire was born in 1821 almost more than 200 years back. He died at the age of 46.
He lived a bohemian life. He also took drugs and alcohol.
He also wrote essays and translated apart from writing poetry. He had close connection with the then literary elite like Edgar Alan Poe.
His single most poetry volume was fluer de mal (flowers of evil).
Baudelaire is a very descriptive, graphic, and painting poet unlike the original very traditional French which were written in fancy calligraphy. He didn't shy away from disturbing subject matters as if his objective is to upset the readers. He had no problem with profanity.
His aim was different with another set od particular aesthetic purpose in mind.
His target is the educated middle class professionals, people who don't work manually as per European class definitions of the 19th century which is called the bouergeose class who are based on utilitarianism who are of usefulness. They are the ones who produces things but with maximum pleasure.
As per artistic point, it is devaluing.
Charles Baudelaire's "A Carcass" demonstrates a new way of thinking where the speaker in one beautiful June morning comes across a Carcass reclined on a bed sewn with pebbles and stones. He displays the magnificence of a rotting corpse which intends to depict the harsh reality in the slums where he spanned his bohemian life despite huge paternal inheritance. He actually revels in the horror of that kind of life. 'Twilight' is another such important poem by him of this kind.
It describes a dead woman's corpse.
The poet is also drawing attention to the urban decay. This places him in the historical context in the mid 19th century Paris which was undergoing rapid and wide-scale industrialisation and development. The city was getting heavily redesigned from its medieval structure to become a recent example of modern meyropolis which represented a sense of alienation and disconnection, shift in values and made poets and artists like him to move away from previous romantic schools of art.
Regent is the queen here.
It is a disgusting poem. Something smells like a dead body which is filthy, undone, and hideous.
The horrible images are also associated with death.
The sensual activity is compared to death. It is interpreted as a woman in sexual activity or a bloated body giving birth.
Another different image of birth was the body giving birth to maggots and insects or an upcoming disturbing generations.
In the next stanza, the image forgotten tries to relive.
There is an image of worms and death where she is in love with worms and gets kisses from worms.
It reminds us of a deathbed, sweating out poisonous stinking fumes.
The poem falls under Romanticism. It is an original poem filled with strange feelings, brutal words, and displays individualism. It is a translated poem from French.