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Baudelaire continues aspects of both romanticism and realism Baudelaire published his first poem book in 1839. This date is encounters the first movements of modernist period. The philosophy of the time affected Baudelaire's style. People was tired of the strict, disciplined, and excessively reason based rules of the time and the acceptation of the reality of human desires was the new subject of the times author. Baudelaire deals with the evil side of the humanity, however he goes beyond to think that human is the combination of the good and evil, and he describe man as a wholly evil creature. In this point of view, he can be considered as a misanthrope.
He does not make any distinction between himself and the rest of human kind, and self-hatred can be seen in his poems. In his poem To the Reader, the same pessimistic atmosphere is dominant. The poem displays the warped sides of human kind. Emotionless sexual desires, sadism, violence, obsession, and the dirty wishes of human nature is claimed in very hateful way in this poem. These features are united with a kind of devil, which people are creating in themselves to be provoked by it. At the last part of the poem, BOREDOM is represented as the worst enemy for humankind.
In this poem, Baudelaire directly addresses to his readers (to all human kind), puts himself and the other people in the same place. Baudelaire has a very masochist way of expressing his ideas. He is like vomiting his anger to himself and to human kind. He uses so strong words to express his intensive feelings that sometimes they are irritating and excessive, but still in a perfect harmony with the atmosphere of the poem.
The poem begins with four words, which are the subject of the poem. These words do not appear in the poem again, however the whole poem deals with these. Infatuation, sadism, lust, avarice are the inevitable elements of human nature. Consciously or unconsciously we are feeding them inside of ourselves. We are the victims of these emotions, that we cannot try to escape or annihilate them.
The helplessness of humans to the certain concepts is illustrated to the lice that survives with whores or beggars. Just like them, these vices live with us as they are natural elements of our lives, and they can find the best environment in there, because of the natural evilness of human nature. While beggar recalls greed, whore has the implication of naked and instinctive sexual need of humans. Charles Baudelaire generally portrays women negatively in his poetry.
They are described as ambiguous and extremely difficult to understand. His fascination with making everything that is seen as beautiful into something ugly manifests itself in his writing. Baudelaire's aim is to transfer that which is thought of as revolting into beauty, and that which is seen as beautiful into something horrid. The poem a celle qui est trop game, starts off very gently, using stereotypical imagery of women, e. g.
flowers, beautiful landscapes, the sky etc. By verse five, the tone changes dramatically and Baudelaire becomes sarcastic, dark thoughts prevail. Now he hates flowers, and he destroys them. He wants to keep the woman in his room and make a hole inside her, where he can inject his venom, thereby killing her (a travers ces level nouvelles, plus eclat antes et plus belles, t infuser mon venin, ma soul! ). Baudelaire's aim is to shock the reader; he combines the romantic (from the 19 th century romanticism movement), with the gothic. However, perhaps Baudelaire's pessimism towards women stems from somewhere else?
It is evident in his poetry that he has been misunderstood all his life (this is demonstrated beautifully in the poem benediction). He has a natural resentment towards the world in which he lives, and women are a part of this world. Perhaps he has never found true love, or maybe hes been disappointed in all his relationships. It seems as if Baudelaire has found a connection between beauty and all that is evil. Maybe his experiences in life have taught him to stay away from that which is aesthetically beautiful, because it causes pain in the long run.
Referring back to the title he sees womans nature as something unpleasant. He has lost all faith in women; his encounters with the opposite sex may have had negative similarities, which caused him great pain and discomfort, thus building up his resentment inside. One can only speculate, no one knows Baudelaire's true reasons behind his pessimism towards women. There are numerous factors that may have contributed to his disappointment. However only Baudelaire is aware of what they are.
Bibliography: Clark, T. J. "Delacroix and Baudelaire. " In The Absolute Bourgeois: Artists and Politics in France, 1848 - 1851, pp. 124 - 77. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1972. Aragon, L. Paypal de Paris. trans.
as Paris Peasant. Picador 1980
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