Saturday, January 26, 2019
A Carcass - Mastery and Imagery
Baudelaire has rapidly become one of my favorite poets, in part due to the intense and striking images he is able to conjure up in the mind of the reader. It's almost manipulative and proves the ideas he's trying to convey on another level: by putting these obscene and deeply rattling thoughts into another's mind, he proves the fundamental vulnerability and capacity for darkness within people. I found "A Carcass" in particular to be intriguing and impactful (and definitely resonant with Poe) due to the strong, twisted images. Something that caught my attention was the use of the word "beautiful" to introduce the poem in the first stanza. The setting is peaceful; he is walking a gentle path with his love, only to come across what he compares to a "lecherous whore", the carcass. He continues to utilize these contrasts which give the reader a sense of shock and instability, speaking of flowers in bloom moments before elaborating on the stench of the body. He tells of the surroundings making a musical sound, then brings us into an abstract state by telling us that the world is reminiscent of a sketch, before throwing us back into the human condition and bringing us towards a "pitiful bitch" who hungrily eyes the carcass. These sharp turns which shake the reader define the poem and leave the last few stanzas as especially impactful as this vertigo caused leaves one unable to predict the conclusion. It's masterful and, as some artists have found, inspiring. Below is a piece done that was inspired by this poem. I find it to display the intense contrast between darkness and the world Baudelaire describes at moments.
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2 comments:
I love how you bring up the extreme visual images (and provide an example of the art it inspired), and how you compare the sudden changes between reality and the imaginary, normalcy and the grotesque, to the feeling of whiplash. The stark differences between two such opposing things really makes the impact of the horrible images he creates that much more strong. The hallucination-quality of his poems wouldn't have the same effect if they weren't grounded in reality, and the terrible images wouldn't be so shocking if there wasn't undertones of beauty behind it.
Great post, Alana! You touch on am important overall aspect of Baudelaire’s work: his intense emotion-evoking imagery and language. Baudelaire loves the shock value of his work—so much so that, as we know, he was sent to prison for one of his writings! Baudelaire makes his poetry so crude simply for the purpose of evoking intense emotions within his readers. Similar to my favorite show South Park, it seems as if Baudelaire loved to see what he could get away with (or not get away with in some cases). Baudelaire did not shy away from anything, and for that reason—although I am typically not the biggest poetry fan—I can at least appreciate Baudelaire’s work.
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