Flowers of Evil: fleurs du mal in pattern and prose

 

Flowers of Evil: fleurs du mal in pattern and prose by Charles Baudelaire
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Was this the most amazing book of poetry I've ever read? No, though I would have a difficult time nailing down exactly which one is (though Mark Valentine's At Dusk would be a strong contendor). Is it among the better books of poetry I've read, absolutely. It's easy to see why people both revere(d) and revile(d) Baudelaire. Take this line, for instance, from "Hymn to Beauty":

So to her heart she ravens back the spume of her loathing . . .

I look at this as a near-perfect sentence. The use of "ravens" as a verb, rather than a noun (or the adjective "ravenous"), is absolutely spot-on for the context. How could one better describe being on the edge of exploding, but forcing oneself to pull that emotion inside and let it fester? This is the type of sentence that makes me, as a writer, envious.

On the other hand, when one looks at the whole poem (or Hymn, in this case), one wonders if Baudelaire was not bordering on misogynism? At the very least, he has a dark view of beauty, like he has been spurned too many times and is thinking about becoming a serial killer. Not the kind of guy I'd like to hang out with, even in a writer's group. But, perhaps I misread him?

Or, perhaps he was simply trying to be decadent. Some might argue that he is trying too hard. I would tend to agree in some instances, disagree in others. There are moments when his purple prose is too treacle-laden even for this lover of baroque forms, words, and constructions. At other times, he shows just enough restraint (ravens his words?) to give his expansive vocabulary and sometimes-convoluted structures the extra kick that good poetry ought to deliver.

I will say, though, that reading this, and particularly this edition of Flowers of Evil has left a strong impression on me and has opened a well from which I will almost inevitably draw. This is the sort of work that influences, whether by pushing writers to write more like him or by pushing them away, to be more intentional about specifically not writing like him. And why is this edition so good? I have three good reasons, though I cannot speak to the translation itself. My French is terrible and, truth be told, nearly non-existent (the only class I failed in college was French for Reading Knowledge - though I can read a fair amount of French. That debacle of a class had everything to do with bad pedagogy, but I digress . . .). The first reason is simply the book's overall design. This 1947 edition has an engraved cover with the design you see in the little cover photo, but the colors are reversed on mine. There is a simple elegance to it, and that engraved cover feels good in the hand, literally. Besides, I get that old book smell out of this volume more than most of my other books. Reading this version is a tactile, olfactory experience. Second, the layout is not in versified form. I find that reading this work as prose-poetry works far batter than trying to read it in carefully laid-out verse. There is a certain flow to Baudelaire's work, or at least to this translation, that would become disjointed and choppy were it all laid out just so. Finally, there is the art by Beresford Egan. It is highly transgressive and would sit well alongside Aubrey Beardsley's most risque, erotic works. There is an expressionism that "breaks" Beardsley's sinuous lines, however, giving the illustrations a decidedly more modern feel.

As I said earlier, this is the kind of work that influences. To illustrate this, let me end with Baudelaire's outstanding poem "A Voyage to Cythera". I'm not sure if this poem influenced Richard Calder's under-rated novel Cythera, but my mind kept popping with mental imagery from the novel after I read this poem . . . three times in a row. Maybe that's just my psychic connection, but I think I can feel the influence there. Even if that's not the case, the feeling of "the weird" that has spawned its own sub-genre is just seething throughout this piece. But here, I'll let it speak for itself, and end there:

A Voyage to Cythera

My heart as a bird fluttered exulting, and fearlessly hovered around the high rigging. 'Neath a cloudless sky rolled the vessel as an angel who of the sun's radiance too deeply had drunk.

But what is this isle, dark and sad?

'Tis Cythera, land famous in song, banal Eldorado of all the old bachelors. See, after all, it is but a poor country.

Cythera, isle of soft secrets and of love's revels, o'er whose seas, as a perfume, hovers the haughty phantom of Venus of old, loading men's spirits with languorous love; fair isle of green myrtles and blowing flowers, for ever by every nation revered, where adoration's sighs roll as fragrance over a garden of roses or the murmurous cooing of doves never-ending - thou wast no more than a spare, barren waste, a stony desert distraught by shrill cries. Yet there mine eyes a singular object descried.

No temple was it, with green shading groves, whose flowers would see their young priestess, with robe to the passing breezes agape, striving to ease her body of the secret fires that consumed it. But, as we skirted the coast so near that our white sails raised the birds in flight, we saw, as a dark cypress against the clear heavens sharply etched, a three-branched gibbet, wherefrom a rotten carcase hun. Savage birds perched there were greedily riddling their prey, thrusting their foul bills, as awls, in the bloody crannies of its stinking mass. Two yawning holes were the eyes; the belly gaped shameless and from it hung heavy the uncoiled intestines that flowed down the thighs. Its hideous executioners, gorged on their unspeakable delicacies, had with their beaks pulled and rent it to tatters. Beneath the feet, in envy of this glutting, roved a pack of creatures, with raised muzzles sniffing the spreading reek, ceaselessly turning hither and thither. One, out-topping the rest, restlessly paced as an executioner amid his assistants.

Cythera's denizen, child of so fair a sky, in silence didst thou these insults suffer, to expiate the infamous cult and the sins that have cut thee off from the tomb.

Ridiculous carcase, thy pangs are mine. At sight of thy limbs in mid air hanging, I felt to my teeth as a vomit rising the gall of my ancient sorrows' long stream. Before thee, poor wretch, reaping thy harvest so sweet, have I felt the crows' probing beaks and the black panthers' jaws, which once did lacerate my flesh.

Lovely the sky, unbroken the sea; but for me thereafter was all black and bloody. Of this allegory wove I my heart's black winding-sheet. In Venus' isle naught did I find save mine own image on a gibbet raised.

Great God, give me the courage and the strength to look upon my body and my heart without disgust.

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