Malfleur
Andrew Fenner
Folly and error, avarice and vice,
Employ our souls and waste our bodies’ force.
As mangy beggars incubate their lice,
We nourish our innocuous remorse.
So begins one
of the most influential volumes of poetry of the 19th Century. This poem is by way of an introduction to the volume. It proceeds like a catalogue of human vice and absurdity with verses such as:
Just as a lustful pauper bites and kisses
The scarred and shriveled breast of an old whore,
We steal, along the roadside, furtive blisses,
Squeezing them like stale oranges for more.
Packed tight, like hives of maggots, thickly seething,
Within our brains a host of demons surges.
Deep down into our lungs at every breathing,
Death flows, an unseen river, moaning dirges.
Then concludes by asserting that there is one “vice” more foul than all the rest:
Boredom! He smokes his hookah, while he dreams
Of gibbets, weeping tears he cannot smother.
You know this dainty monster, too, it seems –
Hypocrite reader! You – My twin – My brother!
*translation from the French by Roy Campbell
This poem is entitled “To The Reader”. The volume it introduces is the infamous “Les Fleurs du Mal” (“The Flowers of Evil”). The poet, one of that special breed of visionary humans who simply sees way too much of the dark side of existence, is Charles Baudelaire.
Baudelaire was born on April 9, 1821. His elderly father died when he was only 6, and his very young mother remarried a military man only a few years later. Charles would butt heads with his step-father frequently, usually over matters of money and/or lifestyle. After suffering through a military academy during his early teens, he attended a well-known private high school, from which he was eventually expelled for insolence. About this time he announced his intention to become a writer, much to his parents dismay. He compromised with them by agreeing to attend law school, where, rather than attending to his studies, he began consorting with bohemians and leading an excessive lifestyle. It is during this period he probably contracted the syphilis that eventually killed him.
In a failed attempt to straighten Charles out, his parents sent him on an extended voyage to India. Within a few months of departure he jumped ship and made his own way back to Paris. There he assumed control of his inheritance, moved to the island of Saint Louis, and immersed himself in the study of art and literature, including such Satanic and gothic horror material as was available in his day. He also indulged in meditation, probably assisted by a liberal intake of opium and hashish. Surprisingly like a modern “goth” persona, he earned a deserved reputation as an oddball due to his outrageous behavior and attire, doing things like growing his hair immoderately long and dying it green. Within two years he had squandered so much of his inheritance that his parents assigned him a legal guardian who limited his access to the money. For most of the rest of his life he was continually in debt and forced to sustain himself on low income.
In 1842, Baudelaire began an affair with the mulatto actress, Jeanne Duval, who his mother referred to as the “Black Venus”. She is the most influential of his muses, though the honor must be shared with another actress, Marie Daubrun, as well as the reknowned “arty” hostess, Apollonie Sabatier. These three women inspired much of Baudelaire’s wonderfully sensual love poetry.
In 1847, Charles discovered the writings of Edgar Allan Poe. Viewing Poe as a kindred spirit, he began to publish critical essays on his work and translations of his morbid tales. These essays and translations are still esteemed to this day for their high quality and thought, and earned Baudelaire a trickle of income for the rest of his adult life.
In 1857, he published “Les Fleurs du Mal” which, in spite of later experiments with prose poetry, an earlier autobiographical novel, the Poe translations, and many important critical essays and reviews, was to be his most significant accomplishment. This short work (163 poems in it’s eventual complete form) caused an immediate uproar and engendered scathing criticism due to Satanic themes and lesbianism found in some of the poems. Baudelaire and his publisher were both prosecuted for moral outrage and fined by the court. Six of the offending poems had to be removed from the book (though they were later added back).
While such publicity might serve as a boon to a modern writer, the scandal dealt a serious blow to Baudelaire’s mid 19th Century writing career, and the spin doctors of the day succeeded in casting him as something of a criminal pervert who was beneath contempt for any decent human being. The “proper” daytime world of French society was just not ready to embrace the seamy life that oozes out of the darkened woodwork when all the virtuous are asleep. Nevertheless, this small volume represents one of the most compelling single works in the history of poetry, its power and beauty assuring its place among the great masterpieces of literaure.
In spite of continuing to publish, Baudelaire spent the remainder of his years in various states of pessimistic depression. During the last two years he suffered from all sorts of seizures and began to become paralyzed and blind. He also suffered horrible headaches and nightmares due to the third stage syphilis attacking his brain. He died peacefully in his mother’s arms on August 31, 1867 at the age of 46.
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