165
See also: The Picture of Dorian Gray 194 ■ A Season in Hell 199 ■
The Waste Land 213 ■ The Outsider 245T
he work of the French
symbolist poets of the
19th century focused
on sensation and suggestion
rather than plain description and
rhetorical effects, and made use of
symbols, metaphors, and imagery
to evoke subjective moods. The
leading symbolists included Paul
Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, and
Stéphane Mallarmé, but the pioneer
was Charles Baudelaire (1821–67).Art from decay
In Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers
of Evil)—the title suggests the
flowering of moral decay into
art—Baudelaire turns his back on
Romantic outpourings in favor of
suggestive symbolism and frank
expression. Using the traditional
alexandrine meter—in which lines
of 12 syllables are divided into two
parts by a pause, or caesura—he
addresses nontraditional new
subjects that were shocking at
the time, such as prostitution,
interracial sex, alcohol, and drugs.
Baudelaire paints a pessimistic
portrait of modern man, inflectedwith his personal concerns—
including his ambitions as a poet.
At the book’s heart is ennui, the
deadening of the soul, as well as an
existential dread and fear of death.A search for meaning
In the opening section, a series of
poems explores the role of the artist
as visionary, martyr, performer,
outcast, and fool. The poet tries
to find meaning through sex, but
initial excitement is followed by
disenchantment—to which art
offers some consolation. In the
second section, “Parisian Tableaux,”
which was added for a new edition
of 1861, the poet roams the city as
a flâneur (an idle observer), finding
only reminders of his own misery.
The old Paris is gone, the new
street scene alienating.
The following sections describe
the poet’s resulting flight to drink,
sex, and even satanism. The last
poem, “The Voyage,” is a miniature
odyssey tracing the travels of the
soul to its final adventure, where at
last there might be something new
to experience. ■DEPICTING REAL LIFE
THE POET IS
A KINSMAN IN
THE CLOUDS
LES FLEURS DU MAL (1857), CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
IN CONTEXT
FOCUS
The French symbolistsBEFORE
1852 Enamels and Cameos,
a collection of poems by
Théophile Gautier, departs
from Romanticism, focusing
on form rather than emotion.AFTER
1865–66 Stéphane Mallarmé,
in “The Afternoon of a Faun,”
gives a dreamlike account of
a faun conversing with two
nymphs—one representing the
material, one the intellectual.1873 Arthur Rimbaud, in
A Season in Hell, presents
two sides to himself—the
poet intoxicated by light and
childhood and the down-to-
earth peasant.1874 Paul Verlaine brings out
Songs without Words, which
is inspired by his relationship
with Arthur Rimbaud.US_164-165_Guarani_Fleurs.indd 165 08/10/2015 13:06