{"id":62752,"date":"2026-07-06T05:00:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T04:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eden-saga.com\/en\/?p=62752"},"modified":"2026-07-06T06:05:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T05:05:28","slug":"baudelaire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eden-saga.com\/en\/baudelaire.html","title":{"rendered":"Charles Baudelaire"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Always be drunk. That’s it! The great imperative! In order not to feel Time’s horrid fardel bruise your shoulders, grinding you into the earth, Get drunk and stay that way. On what? On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever. But get drunk.<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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Get Drunk<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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And if you sometimes happen to wake up on the porches of a palace, in the green grass of a ditch, in the dismal loneliness of your own room, your drunkenness gone or disappearing, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, ask everything that flees, everything that groans or rolls or sings, everything that speaks, ask what time it is; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock will answer you: “Time to get drunk! Don’t be martyred slaves of Time, Get drunk! Stay drunk! On wine, virtue, poetry, whatever!”<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n
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Beau de l’air qu’il respire<\/span><\/h4>\n

Beautiful of the air he breathes<\/span> and that he sends back to us with his emotion, Charles B was born, he lived, he died. All this was well put together between 1821 and 1867. Is it worth being born to leave at 46? To be born causing suffering, to live causing oneself suffering, to leave full of undigested pain, such was Charles B, an icon of suffering.<\/p>\n

Baudelaire was born on 9 April 1821 in Paris. His father, Fran\u00e7ois Baudelaire, a priest defrocked during the Revolution, a former tutor, retired from the Senate, is sixty-two years old; Caroline Dufa\u00ffs, her mother, is twenty-eight. When his father disappeared in 1827, Charles was only 6 years old and his mother 34. She remarried to a future general. Charles very quickly hated this symbol of the bourgeois order.<\/p>\n

At 25 years old, he became an art critic with the Salon of 1845 and the Salon of 1846. He also published poems in magazines and a short story, La Fanfarlo<\/em>. Then he became the official translator of Edgar Poe (1809-1849).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Quarante-huitardForty-eighter<\/span><\/h4>\n
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A brilliant forty-eighter during the 1848 revolution<\/a>, Baudelaire urged the rebels to shoot his father-in-law, the general.<\/p>\n\n

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A quarante-huitard is a revolutionary of 1848, a year rich in revolutions in Europe — the “Spring of the peoples” — in France the French Revolution of 1848 in February, the “June Days”, in Germany the “March Revolution”, etc.<\/span><\/h5>\n

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\"\"Cursed Poet<\/h4>\n

In 1857, Charles Baudelaire published Les Fleurs du Mal.\u00a0 The collection was deemed immoral and, after a trial, the author and his publishers were sentenced to fines and the suppression of six poems.<\/p>\n

His literary career is launched.<\/p>\n

A key figure in French literature, Charles Baudelaire spent almost his entire life in Paris, which was a source of inspiration and the scene of his escapades.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The poet had during his short life, no less than forty homes in the capital.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From the Latin Quarter where he was born and where he spent the first twenty years of his life to the caf\u00e9s of the Grands Boulevards, passing through the alleys of the \u00cele Saint-Louis, the poet has never stopped strolling through the streets of Paris.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In this century of urbanization, Baudelaire has experienced three faces of a changing Paris: the old Paris, the era of transformation and finally, the Paris of Haussmann.<\/p>\n

City full of contrasts, from great misery to luxurious refinement, it participated by its violence and beauty in the inspiration of the cursed poet. (read more)<\/p>\n

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The Vampire<\/h4>\n
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You that, like a dagger\u2019s thrust,
\nHave entered my complaining heart,
\nYou that, stronger than a host
\nOf demons, came, wild yet prepared;<\/p>\n

Within my mind\u2019s humility
\nYou made your bed and your domain;
\n– Infamous one who\u2019s bound to me
\nLike any felon by his chain,<\/p>\n

Like a gambler by his games,
\nLike the bottle and the sot,
\nLike the worms in one\u2019s remains,
\n– Damm you! Damnation be your lot!<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve begged the merciful, swift sword
\nTo overcome my liberty –
\nTo poison I have said the word:
\nSave me from poltroonery.<\/p>\n

Alas the sword! Alas the poison!
\nContemptuous, they spoke to m:
\n“You never can deserve remission
\nOf your accursed slavery,<\/p>\n

“Imbecile! – If our deadly empire
\nFreed you from your present fate,
\nYour kiss would soon resuscitate
\nThe cold cadaver of your vampire!”<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Translate.<\/a>https:\/\/allpoetry.com\/<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nInvitation to a Voyage<\/h4>\n

Child, Sister, think how sweet
\nto go out there and live together!
\nTo love at leisure, love and die
\nin that land that resembles you!<\/div>\n

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For me, damp suns in disturbed skies
\nshare mysterious charms
\nwith your treacherous eyes
\nas they shine through tears.<\/div>\n
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There, there\u2019s only order, beauty:
\nabundant, calm, voluptuous.<\/p>\n

Gleaming furniture, polished by years passing,
\nwould ornament our bedroom; rarest flowers,
\ntheir odors vaguely mixed with amber;<\/p>\n

rich ceilings;\u00a0 deep mirrors;
\nan Oriental splendor
\n\u2014everything there would address our souls,
\nprivately, in their sweet native tongue.<\/p>\n

There, there\u2019s only order, beauty:
\nabundant, calm, voluptuous.<\/p>\n

See on these canals those sleeping boats
\nwhose mood is vagabond;
\nit\u2019s to satisfy your least desire
\nthat they come from the world\u2019s end.
\n\u2014Setting suns reclothe fields,
\nthe canals, the whole town,
\nin hyacinth and gold;
\nthe world falling asleep in a warm light.<\/p>\n

There, there\u2019s only order, beauty:
\nabundant, calm, voluptuous.<\/p>\n

Translated by Keith Waldrop<\/a>“Invitation to a Voyage,” The Flowers of Evil, \u00a9 2006\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Man and the Sea<\/h4>\n
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Free man, you will always cherish the sea!
\nThe sea is your mirror; you contemplate your soul
\nIn the infinite unrolling of its billows;
\nYour mind is an abyss that is no less bitter.<\/p>\n

You like to plunge into the bosom of your image;
\nYou embrace it with eyes and arms, and your heart
\nIs distracted at times from its own clamoring
\nBy the sound of this plaint, wild and untamable.<\/p>\n

Both of you are gloomy and reticent:
\nMan, no one has sounded the depths of your being;
\nO Sea, no person knows your most hidden riches,
\nSo zealously do you keep your secrets!<\/p>\n

Yet for countless ages you have fought each other
\nWithout pity, without remorse,
\nSo fiercely do you love carnage and death,
\nO eternal fighters, implacable brothers!<\/div>\n

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\u00a0Translated by William Aggeler\u00a0 \u00a0 More translations here<\/a><\/div>\n
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\"\"Such was Charles B, icon of suffering<\/span><\/h5>\n

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Sixty years later<\/h4>\n

I discovered Baudelaire at 15, he immediately became my favorite poet, dethroning Arthur Rimbaud who had killed Pierre de Ronsard. Sixty years later, I loved so many poets: Louis Aragon, Paul Val\u00e9ry, Verlaine, L\u00e9o Ferr\u00e9… the list is endless.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But more than any other, Baudelaire always takes my heart. The prince of poets. He is sad, that\u2019s true. Me too, I think. He is bitter, often. I fear him too. The comparison ends here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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European Thinking<\/h2>\n