The Arcades Project - Operi

melting of rumhling glaciers; her neck is a tower of ivory; her teeth are sheep
pCl-ched on the hills ahove Hebron.-This is Americanism superimposed on the
metaphorieal language of the 'Song of Songs. m Jules Laforgue, Melanges posthUllIes
(Paris, 1903), pp. 113-114. C'Notcs sur Baudelaire").(d Compare J86a,3.
[J9,4]
'In the fogs along the Seine, the storm of his youth and the marine suns of his
memories have loosened the strings of an incurably plaintive and shrill Byzantine
viol." Jules Jaforgue, Melanges postllllmcs (Paris , 1903), p. 114, ("Notes sur
Baudelaire"). (,2 [J9,5]
When the first edition of Les l?leul's du mal appeared, Baudelait'e was thirty-six
years old. [J9,6]
Le Vavasseur describes him around 1844: "Byron attired like Beau Brummell."
[J9,?]
The Petits Poemes en prose were first collected posthumously. [J9,8]
"'He was the first to hreak with the public." Laforgue, Melanges posthlllnes (Paris,
1903), l'. 115.":1 [J9,9]
"Baudelaire the eat, Hindu, Yankee, episcopal, alchemist.-Cat: his way of saying
'my dear' in that solemn piece that opens with 'Behave, my Sorrow!'-Yankee:
the use of 'very' hefore an adjective; his eurt descriptions of landscape, and the
line "Mount, my spirit, wander at your case,' which the initiated recite in metallic
tones; his hatred of eloquence and of poetic eonfidences; 'Vaporous pleasure will
drift out of sight / As . .. ' what then'? Hugo, Gautier, and others before him would
have made a Frell(h, oratorical eomparison; he makes a Yankee one and, without
settled prejudi(e, remains in the HiI': 'As a sylphid pirouettes into the wings' (you
can see t.he iron wires and st.age machinery).-Hindu: his poetry is closer to the
Indian t.han that of Lecont.e de Lisle with all his erudition and dazzling intrieaey:
'of sohhing fountains and of birds t.hat sing / endless ohbligatos to my t.rysts.'
Neither a great heart nor a great intclleet hut what plaintive nerves! What open
senses! What a magieal voiceP' J nIcs Laforgue, ,Mt5itwges postJWl11CS (Paris, 1903),
Pl" 118-119 ("Notes sur Baudelaire")."" [J9a,l]
One of the few clearly articulated passages of the Az;gwll'I1t du livre SlIT 1" Belgique-in
chapter 27, "Promenade a Malines": "Profane airs) adapted to peals of
bells. TIrrough the crossing and recrossing melodies, I seemed to hear notes from
"La Marseillaise." TI,e hymn of the rabble, as broadcast from the belfries, had
lost a little of its harshness. Chopped into small pieces by the hammers, this was
not the usual gloomy howling; rather, it had taken on, to my ears, a childish
grace. It was as though tlle Revolution had learned to stutter in the language of