Sherry Chandler » Baudelaire
Baudelaire
From Charles Baudelaire, “Three drafts of a preface” to The Flowers of Evil, selected and edited by Marthiel and Jackson Mathews (New Directions, 1955). These notes toward a preface I assume were translated by the editors. This is the first attempt, probably dating from the second edition in 1861:
Great men are stupid.
My book may have done some good; I do not regret that. It may have done harm; I do not rejoice at that.
The aim of poetry. This book is not made for my wives, my daughters, or my sisters.
Every sin, every crime I have related has been imputed to me.
Hatred and contempt as forms of amusement. Elegists are vulgar scum. Et verbum caro factum est. The poet is of no party. Otherwise, he would be a mere mortal.
The Devil. Original sin. Man as good. If you would, you could be the Tyrant’s favorite; it is more difficult to love God than to believe in Him. On the other hand, it is more difficult for people nowadays to believe in the Devil than to love him. Everyone smells him and no one believes in him. Sublime subtlety of the Devil.
…We are all hanged or hangable.
I have included a certain amount of filth to please the gentlemen of the press. They have proved ungrateful.
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3 Comments
1. Dave replies at 29th June 2008, 11:45 am :
Great! Especially the bit about love vs. belief.
2. koshembos replies at 29th June 2008, 3:30 pm :
My preference is Hatred and contempt as forms of amusement. Always thought that hated has no place among us and contempt should be reserved for singular cases such as dictators and war criminals.
3. sherry replies at 30th June 2008, 12:42 pm :
My attention was drawn to Baudelaire this summer by reading Peter Gay’s Modernism. Gay finds Baudelaire, like Oscar Wilde, a precursor to modernism, some one who “took on the middle-class establishment.” I sense that, like Wilde, Baudelaire indulges in a fair amount of posturing, that in a tradition that runs, oh say, from the Earl of Rochester through Wilde and Ezra Pound down through Andy Warhol, the persona is part of the art. All that as preface to saying I’m not sure exactly what to make of these provocative and somewhat cryptic statements. I like “the word was made flesh” myself. Is that the poet as God?
Of course, as a feminst I have to point out that all that mysticism in the Gospel of John, sort of like Zeus giving birth to Athena from his own head, is a way to make creativity a thing of the intellect and take it away from the actual life-giving flesh of women.
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