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.
I will start by giving examples of certain poems in which this is true, and later I will examine the reasons for this passiveness and hatred towards women.
The poem “a celle qui est trop gaie”, 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 Budelaire 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 levres nouvelles, plus eclatantes et plus belles, t’infuser mon venin, ma soeur!”). Baudelaire’s aim is to shock the reader; he combines the romantic (from the 19th century romanticism movement), with the gothic.
In the poem “le serpent qui danse”, Bau
. . .
As mentioned previously he wants to turn everything that is previously thought of as unattractive, into something beautiful. This poem is a perfect demonstration of his desire to achieve this. Thus he sees them as incapable of attaining higher intelligence and spiritual enlightenment. 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. For example, “je plongerai ma tete amoureuse d’ivresse, dans ce noir ocean ou l’autre est enferme”. The first line of the poem is very powerful “je suis belle, o mortels!” comme un reve de Pierre”. He explores and gets lost in this woman’s hair. Baudelaire is a realist, and he has a pessimistic way at looking at his reality. It is almost as if he has been mesmerized by this incredible beauty, and he cannot escape. Referring back to the title he sees woman’s nature as something unpleasant. The first line “viens-tu du ciel ou sors-tu de l’abime o Beaute?” he cannot make out whether she is good or evil. Beauty is something dangerous, intoxicating, and sadistic, it has no respect for the dead. He later changes this unattractive description into something positive, “why shouldn’t an elephant be beautiful?” Baudelaire toys with this idea of aesthetic beauty; his aim is to be unconventional.
Approximate Word count =
1039
Approximate Pages =
4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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