Selected Erotic Poems
Charles Baudelaire
Translated from the French by RJ Dent
The Godfather of Gloom, Charles Baudelaire, gets the R J Dent treatment in a translation that brings new life and suppleness to his words.
Baudelaire is closed curtains in daytime, candles, overflowing ashtrays and small, intimate parties where small, intimate events occur; as in these closing lines from “Jewels”:
‘And as the candle-light prepared to die,
and its low flames gently lit the chamber,
each time there sounded a contented sigh,
our warm flesh blushed the colour of amber.’
Ennui-ridden existentialist Baudelaire gives us some dreamy transporting moments before we are mired in the sludge of sin once more. This is starkly drawn in ‘I love the memory’, where an Elysium in which ‘no shame was caused by sensuality’, men and women were naked and ‘heaven lovingly caressed their skin’ is firmly of the past. In trying to imagine such times in the present ‘a cold and gloomy feeling envelopes his soul’. It sounds more than cold and gloom. Cold and gloom is Britain pre-global warming most days. Cold and gloom is not
‘a black, terrifying tableau:
monstrosities crying out for their clothes;
twisted bodies, fat uglies needing masks,
the crooked, wasted, flabby, the grotesque –
who some practical god, serene and calm,
forced into metal clothes when they were born,
and every one as pale as candle wax,
who gnaw at their debauchery and sex
who drag with them their parents’ stupid vice
of bringing hideous progeny to life.’
Conversely, the reader can feel the sun and smell the tamarind in ‘Exotic Perfume”, where Baudelaire is once more transported from the bleak present by a woman’s body. Baudelaire portrays women as representing good and evil on a metaphysical plane. I am filled with ennui over Madonna/Whore tropes but in “Exotic Perfume”, the imagery delights.
In “Hair” the woman of the poem is the sea. The poet dives in:
‘Into this black sea where other seas swell,
I’ll dip my lovingly rapturous head
and then, caressed by rolling waves, I will
find you again, idleness that’s fertile
enough to lull me into a sweet bed.’
There is much to delight in this translation. The rich, evocative imagery lends these poems to being read on silken bedding while languorously consuming peeled grapes. This translation serves as both introduction and companion to the works of Charles Baudelaire.
Charles Baudelaire – Selected Erotic Poems
Translated into English by R J Dent
Published by New Urge Editions
R J Dent’s official website book details and links: Selected Erotic Poems – Charles Baudelaire
New Urge Editions book details and links: Banned in France! – Selected Erotic Poems – Charles Baudelaire
R J Dent 