B is for Baudelaire (my favorite poets from A to Z - volume 2)
Thanks to everyone who's read and commented on the first installment of this poetry series, A is for Apollinaire.
Whereas A was fairly easy to decide upon (the only other poet I considered for that blog was Adrienne Rich), B would normally be much more difficult. Depending on my mood, William Blake, Lord Byron and Charles Baudelaire could each easily win the nomination, though at present I'm leaning more toward the French Baudelaire. I didn't know if I should feature two Frenchmen back-to-back, and I'm concerned that Baudelaire's work might be a little too dark for some of my readers, but I've already posted Blake and Byron blogs on MySpace and CrisisChronicles.com.
If I had to pick a list of the greatest poetry books of all time, Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal (Flowers of Evil) would rank rather high in my top ten - in fact there are times in my life when I've ranked it first. As with Apollinaire, we find issues with the translations seeming less brilliant (in some cases, far less) than Baudelaire's French originals. But he is essential reading. Another of my favorite poets, T.S. Eliot, called Les Fleurs du Mal the greatest example of modern poetry in any language. Originally to be called Les Lesbians, the book kicked down all sorts of barriers - and upon its first publication was confiscated by police, leading Baudelaire and his publisher to be tried in court for "offence to public decency." Baudelaire himself said, "I put my entire soul, my entire heart, my entire religion, my entire hatred into that horrible book."
But let me shut up and give you a selection.
Charles Baudelaire, portrait by Swedenborg
Here is his Hymne à la Beauté ("Hymn to Beauty") - with the original French, followed by three distinct English translations (I might try to spinkle some other Baudelaire poems and quotations through the blog comments):
Hymne à la Beauté
Viens-tu du ciel profond ou sors-tu de l'abîme,
O Beauté? ton regard, infernal et divin,
Verse confusément le bienfait et le crime,
Et l'on peut pour cela te comparer au vin.
Tu contiens dans ton oeil le couchant et l'aurore;
Tu répands des parfums comme un soir orageux;
Tes baisers sont un philtre et ta bouche une amphore
Qui font le héros lâche et l'enfant courageux.
Sors-tu du gouffre noir ou descends-tu des astres?
Le Destin charmé suit tes jupons comme un chien;
Tu sèmes au hasard la joie et les désastres,
Et tu gouvernes tout et ne réponds de rien.
Tu marches sur des morts, Beauté, dont tu te moques;
De tes bijoux l'Horreur n'est pas le moins charmant,
Et le Meurtre, parmi tes plus chères breloques,
Sur ton ventre orgueilleux danse amoureusement.
L'éphémère ébloui vole vers toi, chandelle,
Crépite, flambe et dit: Bénissons ce flambeau!
L'amoureux pantelant incliné sur sa belle
A l'air d'un moribond caressant son tombeau.
Que tu viennes du ciel ou de l'enfer, qu'importe,
Ô Beauté! monstre énorme, effrayant, ingénu!
Si ton oeil, ton souris, ton pied, m'ouvrent la porte
D'un Infini que j'aime et n'ai jamais connu?
De Satan ou de Dieu, qu'importe? Ange ou Sirène,
Qu'importe, si tu rends, — fée aux yeux de velours,
Rythme, parfum, lueur, ô mon unique reine! —
L'univers moins hideux et les instants moins lourds?
— Charles Baudelaire
Hymn to Beauty
Do you come from Heaven or rise from the abyss,
Beauty? Your gaze, divine and infernal,
Pours out confusedly benevolence and crime,
And one may for that, compare you to wine.
You contain in your eyes the sunset and the dawn;
You scatter perfumes like a stormy night;
Your kisses are a philtre, your mouth an amphora,
Which make the hero weak and the child courageous.
Do you come from the stars or rise from the black pit?
Destiny, bewitched, follows your skirts like a dog;
You sow at random joy and disaster,
And you govern all things but answer for nothing.
You walk upon corpses which you mock, O Beauty!
Of your jewels Horror is not the least charming,
And Murder, among your dearest trinkets,
Dances amorously upon your proud belly.
The dazzled moth flies toward you, O candle!
Crepitates, flames and says: "Blessed be this flambeau!"
The panting lover bending o'er his fair one
Looks like a dying man caressing his own tomb,
Whether you come from heaven or from hell, who cares,
O Beauty! Huge, fearful, ingenuous monster!
If your regard, your smile, your foot, open for me
An Infinite I love but have not ever known?
From God or Satan, who cares? Angel or Siren,
Who cares, if you make, — fay with the velvet eyes,
Rhythm, perfume, glimmer; my one and only queen!
The world less hideous, the minutes less leaden?
— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)
Hymn to Beauty
Did you spring out of heaven or the abyss,
Beauty? Your gaze infernal, yet divine,
Spreads infamy and glory, grief and bliss,
And therefore you can be compared to wine.
Your eyes contain both sunset and aurora:
You give off scents, like evenings storm-deflowered:
Your kisses are a philtre: an amphora
Your mouth, that cows the brave, and spurs the coward.
Climb you from gulfs, or from the stars descend?
Fate, like a fawning hound, to heel you've brought;
You scatter joy and ruin without end,
Ruling all things, yet answering for naught.
You trample men to death, and mock their clamour.
Amongst your gauds pale Horror gleams and glances,
And Murder, not the least of them in glamour,
On your proud belly amorously dances.
The dazzled insect seeks your candle-rays,
Crackles, and burns, and seems to bless his doom.
The groom bent o'er his bride as in a daze,
Seems, like a dying man, to stroke his tomb.
What matter if from hell or heaven born,
Tremendous monster, terrible to view?
Your eyes and smile reveal to me, like morn,
The Infinite I love but never knew.
From God or Fiend? Siren or Sylph ? Invidious
The answer — Fay with eyes of velvet, ray,
Rhythm, and perfume! — if you make less hideous
Our universe, less tedious leave our day.
— Roy Campbell, Poems of Baudelaire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)
Hymn to Beauty
Did you fall from high heaven or surge from the abyss,
O Beauty? Your bright gaze, infernal and divine,
Confusedly pours out courage and cowardice,
Or love and crime. Therefore men liken you to wine.
Your eyes hold all the sunset and the dawn, you are
As rich in fragrances as a tempestuous night,
Your kisses are a philtre and your mouth a jar
Filling the child with valor and the man with fright.
Did the stars mould you or the pit's obscurity?
You bring at random Paradise or Juggernaut.
Fate sniffs your skirts with a charmed dog's servility,
You govern all and yet are answerable for naught.
Beauty, you walk on corpses of dead men you mock.
Among your store of gems, Horror is not the least;
Murder, amid the dearest trinkets of your stock,
Dances on your proud belly like a ruttish beast.
Candle, the transient moth flies dazzled to your light,
Crackles and flames and says: "Blessèd this fiery doom!"
The panting lover with his mistress in the night
Looks like a dying man caressing his own tomb.
Are you from heaven or hell, Beauty that we adore?
Who cares? A dreadful, huge, ingenuous monster, you!
So but your glance, your smile, your foot open a door
Upon an Infinite I love but never knew.
From Satan or from God? Who cares? Fierce or serene,
Who cares? Sister to sirens or to seraphim?
So but, dark fey, you shed your perfume, rhythm and sheen
To make the world less hideous and Time less grim.
— Jacques LeClercq, Flowers of Evil (Mt Vernon, NY: Peter Pauper Press, 1958)
To read the complete Les Fleurs du Mal (in both French and several English translations, please visit http://fleursdumal.org/ - an excellent site.
To read Wikipedia's online biography of Charles Baudelaire: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Baudelaire.
You may also click here to browse Baudelaire works available though JC's Amazon bookstore.
Very interesting read!
Reply to this
Thanks, Angela!
Reply to this
These bad flowers twist my heartstrings into a knot.
Reply to this
It certainly seems that Baudelaire's heartstrings were knotted.
Reply to this
reading these multiple translations makes me realize there's no hope of my own poetry ever being successfully translated after i'm gone - it'd be rather like trying to translate picasso's cubism into impressionism.
Reply to this
Perfect analogy! What you've said also reminds me of the French poet Stéphane Mallarmé, who (though influenced by Baudelaire) was even more startlingly innovative - and who is notoriously impossible to successfully translate. You'd be the American Mallarmé if you were so originally brilliant in your own write. And Mallarmé could be the Smith of the Seine, in a sense, in his century.
But though it sounds semi-clever and is meant as a compliment, to compare you to each other is to do neither of you justice.
Reply to this
my son's going to be so surprised when I know all of these poets! Wonderful 'cliff notes', I for one appreciate them...my college years were filled with so much science I really feel my literature intake was neglected. Didn't Bauldaire partake of the 'herb' sometimes for inspiration? Also, was he gay? Sorry, but I sense a non-romntic interest in women?
Love ya Hugs,
Suze
Reply to this
Thanks, Suzette - good questions....
Baudelaire was definitely known to partake of hashish and opiates - and in those days they were legal. he even wrote a book entitled On Wine and Hashish, which is available through my store link at the end of the blog.
He was very definitely into women - and definitely gay friendly. I can't say for sure whether he was ever involved with men sexually, though I suspect it's likely he was privately bisexual. Bear in mind, he was prosecuted for merely publishing a few of poems about homosexuality. So it seems he might have felt it necessary to keep any such dalliances on his own part under wraps.
According to an article at glbtq.com:
"Baudelaire seems to have been heterosexual, and only a few homosexual poems (all concerning lesbianism) appear amid the book's mainly heterosexual materials. But homosexuality seems to have been a chief issue in the book's prosecution since the ban involved a much larger proportion of homosexual than heterosexual pieces--three of the six proscribed poems involve frank lesbianism ('Lesbos' and 'Damned Women') or the suggestion of bisexuality or hermaphroditism ('Jewels')."
Reply to this
Oh... I like Baudelaire's.
But I like his writing very much. It captures the full color of emotions and expresses them well, "Oh, Beauty? Your gaze, divine and infernal,... Pours out confusedly... " Lots of emotion in just a brief phrase. And I like the darkness.. it is realistic... love, beauty, life is often that way. Anyway, one more thing to think about reading.. *sigh* Thanks, John.
Reply to this
Thank you, Chris! I too like the realism in the "darkness." And this poem really resonates for me on a number of levels.
Since I said I would try to sprinkle other Baudelaire lines throughout the comments, I will begin with this one:
“The life of our city is rich in poetic and marvelous subjects. We are enveloped and steeped as though in an atmosphere of the marvelous; but we do not notice it.” - C.B.
I noticed it again this past weekend, and have made up my mind to take more time to notice it more often!
Reply to this
i've just read this blog twice, read the wikipedia biography, and am browsing through http://fleursdumal.org/.
it's interesting to me that a man who lauded for translating english to french, as he did with poe, does not seem to have translated his own work from french to english.
the 1st two translations here are different, but to me, similar. the third one is a horse of a different color.
Reply to this
I hadn't thought of it before, but you bring up an extremely interesting question. Before Baudelaire was renowned as a poet in his own right, he was very much esteemed as a translator of English works into French. I wish he would have translated his work (or at least some of it) into English and can only speculate as to why he did not. I know some French - enough to translate some passages into passably poetic English (though it may require me to take some interpretive liberties) - but personally, I would feel far less comfortable translating my own poems into French (and native French speakers would likely find my translations amateurish and poetically deficient) than I would translating French poems into English. Maybe Baudelaire felt a similar discomfort rendering his own work into a learned language. It might also have been reasonable for him to believe it not worth the effort since his work might not have found a receptive audience among the much more "repressed" English and American folks of that era. It is also conceivable that Baudelaire would have wanted to translate them - but that his early death (at 46) prevented it from happening. All of this is pure conjecture on my part.
Interesting that the version by the translator with the French name stands out from the other two.... I regret that I don't know more about Jacques LeClercq (other than the fact that he's translated lots of French and Greek works). I wish I knew if he was a native speaker of French (I'm assuming the other two translators were not).
Thank you, mb!
Reply to this
i'm not finding much on LeClercq online expect that it appears he also has translated dumas and rimbaud.
this is very interesting to me. i'll try and find out more after i do a bit more tidying around the house.
Reply to this
Cool... I appreciate it. I'm not finding much either.
I almost mentioned this in the blog: without Baudelaire, there would likely have been no Rimbaud as we know him. I think of C.B. as the father of the symbolists and even the surrealists. He opened doors for (and influenced) many of them in a number of ways.
Reply to this
well, i thought i had found more, then noticed that the DOB cited for LeClercq is listed as 1945, and that this translation was printed in 1958. somehow 13 seems a bit young for someone to not only be translating a poem like this one, but also have it published. then again, perhaps he could be a doogie howser with language.
my own personal reference librarian has just gotten home and will hopefully take on this search.
i can see why you might see baudelaire as the father of these 2 schools. it is too bad that our mutual friend philip, the surrealist painter, is off doing a workshop right now, or i would point him the direction of this blog. i think he would enjoy it.
sometime in the very near future, i hope to actually comment on the poem itself
Reply to this
I discovered biographies of other Jacques LeClercqs too - but none that seemed to fit the bill. It must be a common name. Since our JL seems to have been a prolific and repected translator, I thought he might have been affiliated with a university - but I've had no success pinpointing him.
Looking forward to your comment on the poem...
Reply to this
I was so excited when I read that you posted a blog on Baudelaire. Thanks for putting this together, I enjoyed it immensely!
Reply to this
I'm very glad! Thank you very much, Julie!
Reply to this
Ooops... I just realized I left the word "sonnet" in this blog (and I just removed it). The Hymn to Beauty is not a sonnet - but I had chosen a different poem (which WAS a sonnet) first. When I decided to delete it and use "Hymn to Beauty" instead, I neglected to remove the now inapplicable "sonnet" designation before I posted this.
Sorry!
Reply to this
That was wholly inarticulate.LOL... But I think I get that...
Reply to this
That's what happens when I comment while the four grandkids are here and I'm on the phone with mom... lol. I can't multi-task like I used to, apparently. I'll be back to continue replying in a little while.
Reply to this
I hate being inarticulate!... LOL. Let me try again.
I originally selected a Baudelaire sonnet for this blog. When I changed my mind and picked this poem (which is NOT a sonnet) instead, I forgot to remove the word "sonnet" from my description of the poem.
I've since fixed it - so there is no trace of my error (the word "sonnet") in the blog. But people who received my blog via e-mail subscription will still be able to see the goof in their inbox version.
Reply to this
“Any healthy man can go without food for two days, but not without poetry”
-Charles Baudelaire
Reply to this
a poem a day keeps the doctor away?
Reply to this
Apparently so....
Especially interesting when one considers the similarity between the French words for apple (pomme) and poem (poème).
Reply to this
One interesting thing about translations is the many rules that need to be (or should be) applied and how some translators seem to bend or abandon rules when it meets their fancy.
Technology is based (fairly) firmly on rules. So I thought it would be interesting to see what the online translation system, Babelfish (altavista.com) had to offer.
Here is the French to English translation using the original French version above as the starting point. I've just added line breaks so the formatting is the same.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Anthem with the Beauty
Do you come from the deep sky or leave you the abyss,
O Beauty? your glance, infernal and divine,
confusedly Pours the benefit and the crime,
And one can for that compare to you with the wine.
You contain in your eye laying down it and the dawn;
You spread perfumes like one evening stormy;
Your kisses are a philtre and your mouth an amphora
Which make the loose hero and the courageous child.
Do you leave the black pit or go down you from the stars?
The charmed Destiny follows your underskirts like a dog;
You randomly sow the joy and the disasters,
And you control surfaces all and do not answer of nothing.
You steps on deaths, Beauté, of which you make fun;
Of your jewels the Horror is not the least charming,
And the Murder, among your dearer charms,
On your proud belly dances lovingly.
The transitory one dazzled flies towards you, candle,
Crépite, flames and says: Let us bless this torch!
In love the pantelant tilted one on its beautiful A
the air with a dying man cherishing his tomb.
That you come from the sky or the hell, that imports,
Ô Beauté! enormous monster, alarming, ingenuous!
If your eye, your mouse, your foot, open the door
Of Infinite to me that I like and ever knew?
Of Satan or God, who imports? Angel or Siren,
Which imports, if you return, - fairy with the eyes of velvet,
Rythme, perfume, gleam, ô my single queen!
- less hideous universe and less heavy moments?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Interesting!
Some of it is translated almost word for word while other parts appear to be "spruced up" a bit.
Reply to this
Wow! It's amazing how word for word some of it is (I wouldn't have expected that) - and also interesting to note the places where it doesn't seem to match so much.
Thanks, Kurt! That was cool, and I'm glad you thought of it.
Reply to this
Here's another Baudelaire poem (as promised), and another LeClercq translation. This is one of the so-called "condemned poems" that the French court banned from publication (just to give folks an idea of what was considered so controversial in the mid 1800s):
The Jewels
Naked was my dark love, and, knowing my heart,
Adorned in but her most sonorous gems,
Their high pomp decked her with the conquering art
Of Moorish slave girls crowned with diadems.
Dancing for me with lively, mocking sound,
This world of stone and metal, brittle and bright,
Fills me with rapture who have always found
Excess of joy where hue and tone unite.
Naked she lay, suffered love pleasurably
To mould her, smiled on my desire as if,
Profound and gentle as the rising sea,
It rode the tide toward its appointed cliff.
A tiger, tamed, her eyes on mine, intent
On lust, she sought all strange ways to please:
Her air, half-candid, half-lascivious, lent
A new charm to her metamorphoses.
In turn, her arms and limbs, her veins, her thighs,
Polished as nard, undulant as a swan,
Passed under my serene clairvoyant eyes
As belly and breasts, grapes of my vine, moved on.
Skilled in more spells than evil angels muster
To break the solace which possessed my heart,
Smashing the crystal rock upon whose luster
My quietude sat on its own, apart,
Her waist, awrithe, her belly enormously
Out-thrust, formed strange designs unknown to us,
As if the haunches of Antiope
Flowed from a body not yet Ephebus.
Slowly the lamplight sank, resigned to die.
Firelight pierced darkness, stud on glowing stud,
Each time it heaved a sharply flaming sigh
It steeped her amber flesh in pools of blood.
— Jacques LeClercq, Flowers of Evil (Mt Vernon, NY: Peter Pauper Press, 1958)
Reply to this
I might as well give it to you in French as well:
Les Bijoux
La très chère était nue, et, connaissant mon coeur,
Elle n'avait gardé que ses bijoux sonores,
Dont le riche attirail lui donnait l'air vainqueur
Qu'ont dans leurs jours heureux les esclaves des Mores.
Quand il jette en dansant son bruit vif et moqueur,
Ce monde rayonnant de métal et de pierre
Me ravit en extase, et j'aime à la fureur
Les choses où le son se mêle à la lumière.
Elle était donc couchée et se laissait aimer,
Et du haut du divan elle souriait d'aise
À mon amour profond et doux comme la mer,
Qui vers elle montait comme vers sa falaise.
Les yeux fixés sur moi, comme un tigre dompté,
D'un air vague et rêveur elle essayait des poses,
Et la candeur unie à la lubricité
Donnait un charme neuf à ses métamorphoses;
Et son bras et sa jambe, et sa cuisse et ses reins,
Polis comme de l'huile, onduleux comme un cygne,
Passaient devant mes yeux clairvoyants et sereins;
Et son ventre et ses seins, ces grappes de ma vigne,
S'avançaient, plus câlins que les Anges du mal,
Pour troubler le repos où mon âme était mise,
Et pour la déranger du rocher de cristal
Où, calme et solitaire, elle s'était assise.
Je croyais voir unis par un nouveau dessin
Les hanches de l'Antiope au buste d'un imberbe,
Tant sa taille faisait ressortir son bassin.
Sur ce teint fauve et brun, le fard était superbe!
— Et la lampe s'étant résignée à mourir,
Comme le foyer seul illuminait la chambre
Chaque fois qu'il poussait un flamboyant soupir,
Il inondait de sang cette peau couleur d'ambre!
— Charles Baudelaire
Reply to this
this one is amazing as well. i will have to read it a few more times too...
Reply to this
beauty. i've tried to read this and not make it about a woman, but beauty in general and it doesn't fit that way for me. it also does not fit for a man for me. i can see nothing but a woman, and as i almost always can do, i've got a song running through my head. "dazed and confused". not saying that i am personally dazed and confused, however.
you know i've written a couple of blogs about beauty in the past, whether people can see beyond the physical and see what's inside a person.
to me this poem sees beauty as beauty and ugliness at the same time, they go hand in hand. heaven and hell. life and death.
what one person perceives as beauty in another though, may not be the same for someone else. this is to me about beauty in general though.
i am conflicted by this poem. i have read it now at least a dozen times and each time i find something new about it.
perhaps i cannot give a definitive reply, because the poem itself is not definitive to me, the same way beauty is not definitive to me.
Reply to this
I can dig it.
As Nikos Kazantzakis said in The Last Temptation of Christ,"the doors to heaven and hell are adjacent and identical." As I've said before, perhaps they're the same door.
You've also reminded me of these words by Baudelaire: “If a given combination of trees, mountains, water, and houses - say a landscape - is beautiful, it is not so by itself, but because of me, of my favor, of the idea or feeling I attach to it.”
Reply to this
*points to her nose* exactly.
Reply to this
Beauty..a rather complex subject. We are always trying to attain it and find it not only in people, but scenery, an act of kindness, music, etc. Yet, sometimes what is beautiful can turn ugly. I've always been puzzled as to why I could never stand to see cut flowers and I finally figured out it's because I have always seen them and smelled them at funerals. They are beautiful and smell nice, yet when in that particular scenario, they become ugly to me and they have the stench of death. Sorry this is depressing, but that is how I feel when reading Baudelaire. I feel like he was never happy in the present, but always searching for the ideal woman, love, life in general. He seemed bored with his present lot in life. Sometimes I suppose that is how we all feel during certain times in our lives. I do think he is interesting however. Shows you what drugs can do to a mind!
Reply to this
Checking the books on Baudelaire I found that Lois Hyslop wrote a lot on him. She was a professor of French I knew when I was a grad assistant at Penn State. I remember her well along with other members of the French section of the Dept. of Romance Languages.
However, I was interested more in the Spanish poetry of the civil war and took courses with Arturo Barea, whose autobiography "The Forging of a Rebel" is now being read in Spain. Barea fled the country and lived in England. If you want an interesting blog read Rich's blog on Orwell. This really makes one think. I find Baudelaire a bit too decadent, too fixated on evil, ugliness, drugs and sexuality that stinks of necrophilia etc. Some people are fascinated with his language but his poetry, although interesting is somehow repugnant both in translation and in the original French. Those who love the French language probably love Baudelaire but the message is more evil than good. Remember chocolate is good but if you eat pounds and pounds of it you vomit. The same goes for too much wine. Interesting that he died young after being in a nursing home with a death-dealing sexual disease. I guess he was bi-sexual. It fits the bio.
Reply to this
Strangely, sometimes in art Evil seems more real than Good. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that good never pretends to be evil - but evil certainly seems to be adept at masquerading as good. That is part of why Baudelaire grabs me as very real, despite at the same time being rather unpleasant and even undesirable.
As Bob Dylan sang, "Sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace." But somehow it's a heck of a lot harder to imagine a man of peace coming as Satan.
Reply to this
I am very grateful for you sharing your thoughts, Susan. You demonstrate great insight and empathy - and what you've said sheds a lot of light on Baudelaire the human being. I know at times I tend to want to forget that great artists are more human than they are artist. Sometimes, oddly enough, it seems (as in the case of Baudelaire), that while the artist's great humanity makes him a better artist, his great artistic passion contributes to making him somewhat less human. Opiates, drinking, and syphillitic madness seemed to have played huge roles in amplifying the dark, instatiable dissatisfaction (intentional redundancy for emphasis) in Baudelaire's soul.
Reply to this
Why do you consider the Flowers of Evil essential reading? (I'm woefully ignorant.)
#1 seems to be more of a direct translation, not converted into rhyme. I like it more than the other two for that reason.
I don't know if I like Baudelaire. It seems I don't like romanticism - I like more poetry that springs out of the disordered chaos of post modern experience. Modern angst-ridden poetry seems more derived of organic experience.
I'm so glad yr doing these. It's like getting a poetry education.
Reply to this
Thanks for your feedback, Lady!
I usually find myself wishing translators wouldn't have bothered trying to make everything rhyme - because more often than not, such attempts only strip the poetry of (or at least suppress) whatever organic-ness it happened to possess. In the case of this Baudelaire poem, although the French version does rhyme, it doesn't seem as contrived in that language as the rhymes that the English translators have come up with sometimes seem.
Translation #1 certainly seems to be more literal. And I might have liked any of the three translations even better if they'd been a little freer (though that would also have made them somewhat less true to the words/meter/rhyme, if not the sense and poetry, of the original). Part of the issue could be that these translations all date from the 1950's - where scholars who have lacked Baudelaire's innovative zeal and flair might have gravitated toward a more "traditional" poetic interpretation in their translations. Baudelaire, however, in his own language and (especially) time, was by no means traditional - although the scores of poets since him, who've imitated or been influenced by him, might make him seem a bit old-fashioned (for some reason the Beatles come to mind as an analogy - as innovative as they seemed to be at one time, and as mainstream and even old-fasioned as they seem by comparison today).
Part of why I like Baudelaire so much is that he made extreme darkness beautiful - and extreme beauty dark. He smashed barriers, making subjects that had been forever considered unpoetic very poetic indeed. For better or worse, he lived life to the fullest and poured it into his art, with minimal sugarcoating, despite the very real risk of making himself unliked and even (in the eyes of the "authorities") a criminal. And as I hinted at in an earlier reply to Elena, his dark, simultaneously beautiful and ugly poetry seemed real - more real than anything that came before and much that came after. After his death, largely because of his door-opening work, poets seemed to be more willing to write about anything, no matter how mundane it might have seemed to older poetic generations.... He (to me at least) began the process of giving the poetry back to the people. Without Baudelaire, there might have been no Rimbaud or symbolists. And though a master of traditional poetic "technique," which he used liberally, he made it seem effortless and "free" (at least in the context of his time - although it's not as readily apparent in translation).
I will try to find an more modern uncopyrighted translation - so we can see how it compares. Perhaps we'll find it even more satisfying.
Reply to this
Here are some comments this same blog has received on MySpace:
great piece. I love Baudelaire.
Posted by Eulalie Cholmondeley ©™ on May 18, 2008 - Sunday at 7:49 PM
Thanks, Eulalie! Nice to see you....
Posted by Jesus Crisis on May 18, 2008 - Sunday at 7:54 PM
I'm all to familiar with how difficult translations are. My best friend's husband is Latino and speaks fluent English and Spanish. He often is relating something to his wife and tells her that there is no word in English for what he is trying to say. Thank goodness for the four years of Spanish she took in high school. So some things he can't adequately explain. They are literally lost in the translation. Now, I have to go back and read these poems. Your blogs are a real treat. I feel like I'm back in colllege. Learning. I never want to stop learning.
Posted by Tara on May 19, 2008 - Monday at 9:17 AM
I don't ever want to stop learning either.
Your comments about things being "lost in translation" remind me of something the 2nd century Jewish sage Rabbi Yehudah said. He was talking about the scriptures, of course, but I think his words can be applied to a lot of other translations (especially of poetry) as well:
"One who translates a verse literally is a liar; one who adds to it is a blasphemer."
- BTQiddushin, 49a
Posted by Jesus Crisis on May 19, 2008 - Monday at 11:20 AM
I never read anything from this poet before, but I had heard of him. I like the dark aspect. I printed out the translatons read them individually and then compared them. I see that there is at many points great variance in the translations. The differences are at points so striking that one wonders if the translator is taking poetic license and re-writing the piece, although I don't think that is the case. This is a fine illustration of why someone interested in an author of any type would be moved to learn the author's language in order to lose none of the meaning. I'm certain that in the broadest sense the meaning is preserved, but there surely must be some subtleties that are lost. As for the poem itself, it is quite interesting how beauty is portrayed as a powerful, pervasive and persuasive evil. Upon reflection I know for certain that I have fallen victim to it's charms.
Posted by Tara on May 19, 2008 - Monday at 9:33 AM
Thanks, Tara! Valid points... and I've definitely been there!
Posted by Jesus Crisis on May 19, 2008 - Monday at 11:22 AM
Haven't we all! At least I am a willing victim...
Posted by The Judge And Jury on May 19, 2008 - Monday at 8:23 PM
Reply to this
Such a nice blog
Reply to this
I have to say this has been probably the most helpful posts for me. Please keep it up. I cant wait to read whats next.
Professional Web Developer, Cheap, Leigh, Flash, Ecommerce Web Designs Services UK
Reply to this
Hi, I must say that you have made some good points in the post. I performed searches on the topic and found most people will agree with your blog. Thanks for sharing this information.
Reply to this