Blog Entry 4

Charles Pierre Baudelaire, a cursed poet and was also one of the first great French precursors of the symbolists.  Baudelaire was born on April 9, 1821, in Paris. Being an inspiration of following poets, Baudelaire’s life is very depressive and uncommon. The death of his father led to a period of very close intimacy with his mother, therefore creating a passionate love towards her. The remarriage of his mother became a cruel betrayal which started his cursed yet talented life. At the age of 21, Baudelaire inherited the great fortune from his father’s estates but his recklessness spending led to the appointing of a legal guardian who controls his finances. This action drove the poet to despair. However, all this betrayal and suffering has not end for him. An affair with an interracial woman, Jeanne Duval added to his suffering of cursed life. The cause of this suffering from his affair are many well written poems, all inspired and mostly dedicated to his “Black Venus”, Jeanne Duval. The cursed life of Baudelaire created a most famous work in his collection of poems Les Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil). Apart from his toxic love life, synesthesia also contributes to his great writing. Synesthesia is the mixing of the senses, the ability to smell a color or see a sound. The gift of vital senses concludes to his poems with complex ideas of what beauty is. (See 'Charles Pierre Baudelaire' Encyclopedia of world biography)

One of Baudelaire’s famous supernatural poems, “The Ghost” is written to express his love towards the person he cannot love, but yet haunts and protects. Through the poem, everything contains dark and evil creatures, meanings as a contrast to the night. Baudelaire uses “The Ghost” as a title and also a connection to himself because of all the haunting done by “The Ghost”. Baudelaire wanted to represent a beasty angel to protect his mistress among the night, during her sleep. However the invisible wall between them has only let his shadows beside her. (1-4). Although Baudelaire cannot give her warm and passion of real love, he will give him something of his own, the cold and pain he suffers in the relationship (5-8). He is viewed as an affair; therefore his place will be taken by sunrise (9-11). The beauty and exquisiteness of the mistress attracts men by sight which triggers the jealousy of Baudelaire (10-12).

“The Ghost” is a correspondence of Baudelaire’s toxic love life towards the person or persons who he cannot love but yet haunts and protects. The use of holy and hellish creatures in the poem suggests that Baudelaire was a man of religion that felt God has gave him a cruel and damned life. According to Liukkonen, "Baudelaire was the first to equate modern, artificial, and decadent. Himself he saw as a fallen angel." A fallen angel can also be a symbol for “ghost”, since ghosts have all the same aspects of an angel except that the ghosts’ place is in hell, and angel in heaven. When we think of both fictional characters, nothing about love would come in mind, thus Baudelaire signifying the love that will never display. His longing of being beside his beloved has made his love impossible yet possible, hence the pain he suffers. The invisible wall between him and his beloved has made his love perceptible but untouchable; therefore creating this shadow that follows and haunts his dearest.

 Baudelaire’s gift of synesthesia; the mixing of the senses, the ability to smell a color or see a sound, was also mentioned to have a stronger sense of what complex idea beauty is. Thus in this poem, what love is. It is described in Liukkonen’s words that "Baudelaire thought of love as the loss of innocence, but also the highest pleasure, doing evil intentionally is a source of lust." When we connect the aspects of what Baudelaire thought of love to his second stanza, we see how this “ghost” suffers from the pain the love did. The words “my own” meaning part of him, and part of a ghost normally resembles cold, dark, even death. When he wanted to give part of him to the person, he wanted to drag the person into the cold dark world he’s in. The evil in Baudelaire has cost him to drag his beloved into his cold dark world that he cannot bare himself, and yet he felt the pleasure of the evil he did. The pain he caused himself, in contrast are the words “thorny brake”. The two words suggest a painful stop which his love results in, but he cannot stop his pain from reoccurring by "haunting" his lover.

Baudelaire once stated that "after examining scrupulously the depths of my past reveries, I realized that I have always been obsessed by the impossibility of understanding some of man's actions or thoughts save by the hypothesis of the intervention of some exterior evil force." (Liukkonen). The last two stanzas relate Baudelaire’s actions to other men’s actions with the intervention of some exterior evil force. His thoughts on the “evil force” are within himself because his evil actions caused him to become an affair of another, as well as the jealousy he has but cannot present. In this case, this “evil force” has caused him to be with his beloved for only a certain amount of time and leaving by sunrise. It is to believe that Baudelaire wanted to stop such actions, but the “evil force” (love) cannot be stopped. Another cause of this evil would also be the attraction of the woman (women) he loves. The “youthfulness” and “tenderness” might also symbolize poison of his dearest that blinded his heart and mind, hence developing his evil deeds of jealousy. In the end, we are left with not only love, but hate towards his beloved one; the hatred of love that cannot be loved.

Works Cited:

Liukkonen, Petri. "Charles Baudelaire."  Kuusankosken Kaupunginkirjasto, 2008. Www.kirjasto.sci.fi. Web. 04 Apr. 2012. <http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/baudelai.htm>.

"Charles Pierre Baudelaire." Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 4 Apr. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.