Back with another of my fav poems from our great old Charles Baudelaire. This one, "La vie antérieure", which could be translated as "Past life", is a sonnet taken from the Flowers of Evil, part Spleen and Ideal.
Enjoy your reading!La vie antérieure
J'ai longtemps habité sous de vastes portiques
Que les soleils marins teignaient de mille feux
Et que leurs grands piliers, droits et majestueux,
Rendaient pareils, le soir, aux grottes basaltiques.
Les houles, en roulant les images des cieux,
Mêlaient d'une façon solennelle et mystique
Les tout-puissants accords de leur riche musique
Aux couleurs du couchant reflété par mes yeux.
C'est là que j'ai vécu dans les voluptés calmes,
Au milieu de l'azur, des vagues, des splendeurs
Et des esclaves nus, tout imprégnés d'odeurs,
Qui me rafraîchissaient le front avec des palmes,
Et dont l'unique soin était d'approfondir
Le secret douloureux qui me faisait languir.
Que les soleils marins teignaient de mille feux
Et que leurs grands piliers, droits et majestueux,
Rendaient pareils, le soir, aux grottes basaltiques.
Les houles, en roulant les images des cieux,
Mêlaient d'une façon solennelle et mystique
Les tout-puissants accords de leur riche musique
Aux couleurs du couchant reflété par mes yeux.
C'est là que j'ai vécu dans les voluptés calmes,
Au milieu de l'azur, des vagues, des splendeurs
Et des esclaves nus, tout imprégnés d'odeurs,
Qui me rafraîchissaient le front avec des palmes,
Et dont l'unique soin était d'approfondir
Le secret douloureux qui me faisait languir.
Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), The Flowers of Evil, "Spleen and Ideal", 1857-61-68
Previous Existence
For a long time I lived under vast colonnades, Stained with a thousand fires by ocean suns,
Whose vast pillars, straight and majestic,
Made them seem in the evening like grottos of basalt.
The sea-swells, in swaying the pictures of the skies,
Mingled solemnly and mystically
The all-powerful harmonies of their rich music
With the colors of the setting sun reflected by my eyes.
It is there that I have lived in calm voluptuousness,
In the center of the blue, amidst the waves and splendors
And the nude slaves, heavy with perfumes,
Who refreshed my forehead with palm-leaves,
Their only care was to fathom
The dolorous secret that made me languish.
— Geoffrey Wagner, Selected Poems of Charles Baudelaire (NY: Grove Press, 1974)
As every poem in the book, it is one of the many and vain poet's attempts to get rid of his spleen. The way used here is the memory of an old, antical perfect place that can be the baudelairian Ideal.
Naturally this world is directly inspired from the parnassian poetical movement which has influenced Baudelaire since teenage. Inspired because it cannot be parnassian at all: the poet, that shows his presence in the verses, describes a little bit his feeling, and anyway, this poem inspires us a sort of idealistic, dreamy, paradise atmosphere, which isimpossible in a parnassian poem. Remember, one of the Parnasse caracteristics is not to be lyrical, so as to fight the huge place romanticism took at the moment.
Therefore we have here bits of romanticism; those are confidences from the poet; but it's not romanticism. We know the poet is here, however he seems to fade a little whereas the romantic poet talk about himself to himself: we know it's him and not Mr. Everybody. Baudelaire's poetry tends to be universal. Anyone of us can figure himself/herself in this past life and feel Baudelaire's Spleen. Well it's also possible with some romanticist texts, but less because it is most of the time too descriptive. Most of the romanticists show their feelings, Baudelaire and later the symbolists suggest them through symbols (I know, there aren't any symbol here). The key is suggesting an emotion, a feeling. You see, Baudelaire describes here his environment, and then we can feel through this description what he feels. The music and sounds help too.
Conclusion: this poem is some exalted parnassian and baudelairian one.
This poem confirms, too, that the Spleen is fatal and that there is no cure to it. The past life is a dreamy environment, with wonderful landscapes, where everything seems to be perfect, calm, rich, right, where the senses are well treated;and then we have the two last verses: there are some secrets that are hurting the poet's mind. Plus note the i sound that makes an horrible noise. The Spleen eats our mind even in the Ideal. Poor us, poor Baudelaire. Human's mind will never change, and the Ideal is unreachable except through dreams.
Well, all of this illustrates partly the whole of Baudelaire's work, life, psychology and philosophy.
I hope those explanations are right and satisfy everyone, though they are not organised. I could do a whole commentary of this; anyway would it be useful?
