The Baudelairean Sonnet
the new flowers of which I dream
Let us be honest; I do not have enough time in my amazingly short life to study every different type of sonnet ever crafted under the sun … and what a drab life that would be! Spring is here, the windows to this office are open, chirpy-birds are chirping on the budding branches, my neighbor's dog is howling at the grass, the great green world is calling me to leave behind my pen and ink and book and go jogging over its rolling surface. And for a guy who makes a living changing other people's adult diapers as a living, a chance to go gulmping over this great green world would be nice.
So, why a Baudelairean sonnet? Why a green Baudelaire? Perhaps because it is not easy being green, but more because Baudelaire's sonnet is amazing! Rosemary Lloyd quotes Ambroise Paul Toussaint Jules Valéry in singing the praises of the irregular Baudelairean sonnet:
[A] combination of mind and body, a blend of solemnity, warmth and bitterness, of the eternal and the intimate, an extremely rare alliance of will power and harmony, the distinguish [the sonnets] from Romantic poetry just as clearly as from Parnassian poetry …1
As for the lovely green hue? Baudelaire was a known user and abuser of the Green Fairy, absinthe. As was pointed out about Baudelaire, he …
… was known for making disparaging remarks about Paris. He quipped that Paris had become 'a center, radiating universal stupidity.' Nonetheless Paris served as his teacher and provided an inexhaustible source of subject matter for his poetry … misunderstood by the public and critics, [his] Les Paradis Artifcicels condemned fake mysticism … Baudelaire's premise was that modern man sought the most rapid (and false) path to spiritual gratification … After years of exile in Belgium, Baudelaire died at the age of 46, ravaged by veneral disease and long-term substance addictions.2
It is my hope in the next couple of days to not only translate several of his sonnets but to look into what exactly makes the Baudelairean Sonnet so fascinating, interesting, delightful. Who knows, you might just end up writing your own Green Fairy poems. Let us see what we shall learn, eh?