Charles+Budelaire

Angie T CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

Charles Baudelaire was a [|French poet] who also produced notable work as an essayist, art [|critic], and pioneering [|translator] of [|Edgar Allan Poe]. He was born in Paris, France in April 9, 1821 and he died in August 31, 1867 at age 46. He is one of the major innovators in [|French literature]. He was influenced by the french romantic poets of the 19th century. but is attention to the formal features of verse connect it more closely to the contemporary Parnassians. In his works we see the rejection of the belief in the supremacy of nature and the fundamental goodness of man as typically espoused by the romantics and expressed by them in rhetorical, effusive and public voice in favor of a new urban sensibility, an awareness of individual moral complexity, an interest in vice and refined sensual and aesthetical pleasures, and the use of urban subject matter, such as the city, the crowd, individual passers by, sometimes through a cynical and Ironic voice. The best of his work is considered among the fines French poetry. Here are some of his famous poems:

TO A MADONNA ADONNA, mistress, I would build for thee An altar deep in the sad soul of me; And in the darkest corner of my heart, From mortal hopes and mocking eyes apart, Carve of enamelled blue and gold a shrine For thee to stand erect in, Image divine! And with a mighty Crown thou shalt be crowned Wrought of the gold of my smooth Verse, set round With starry crystal rhymes; and I will make, O mortal maid, a Mantle for thy sake, And weave it of my jealousy, a gown Heavy, barbaric, stiff, and weighted down With my distrust, and broider round the hem Not pearls, but all my tears in place of them. And then thy wavering, trembling robe shall be All the desires that rise and fall in me From mountain-peaks to valleys of repose, Kissing thy lovely body's white and rose. For thy humiliated feet divine, Of my Respect I'll make thee Slippers fine Which, prisoning them within a gentle fold, Shall keep their imprint like a faithful mould. And if my art, unwearying and discreet, Can make no Moon of Silver for thy feet To have for Footstool, then thy heel shall rest Upon the snake that gnaws within my breast, Victorious Queen of whom our hope is born! And thou shalt trample down and make a scorn Of the vile reptile swollen up with hate. And thou shalt see my thoughts, all consecrate, Like candles set before thy flower-strewn shrine, O Queen of Virgins, and the taper-shine Shall glimmer star-like in the vault of blue, With eyes of flame for ever watching you. While all the love and worship in my sense Will be sweet smoke of myrrh and frankincense. Ceaselessly up to thee, white peak of snow, My stormy spirit will in vapours go! And last, to make thy drama all complete, That love and cruelty may mix and meet, I, thy remorseful torturer, will take All the Seven Deadly Sins, and from them make In darkest joy, Seven Knives, cruel-edged and keen, And like a juggler choosing, O my Queen, That spot profound whence love and mercy start, I'll plunge them all within thy panting heart!
 * // by: Charles Baudelaire //**

BEAUTY AM as lovely as a dream in stone, And this my heart where each finds death in turn, Inspires the poet with a love as lone As clay eternal and as taciturn. Swan-white of heart, a sphinx no mortal knows, My throne is in the heaven's azure deep; I hate all movements that disturb my pose, I smile not ever, neither do I weep. Before my monumental attitudes, That breathe a soul into the plastic arts, My poets pray in austere studious moods, For I, to fold enchantment round their hearts, Have pools of light where beauty flames and dies, The placid mirrors of my luminous eyes.
 * // by: Charles Baudelaire //**