What makes you human?

Baudelaire’s prose poems show his distinctive humanist streak, and his first person narrator usually sums up the human truth you are supposed to understand by the time you finish one of the pieces. For example, in Counterfeit Coin the narrator elaborates at the very end, “It is never excusable to be mean, but there is some merit in knowing that you are; and the most irreparable of vices is to do evil through stupidity.”

His works observe, interact, and conclude. However, simple that might make these stories — I actually found them to be a beautifully deep and generous well of personal experiences, thoughts (both passing ideas and heavy affairs to be brooded over), and desires. This naturally makes his stories relatable and, in turn, thought provoking, though, the thoughts his stories elicited from me were less intellectual a more emotive.

As these stories are about humans, there are some instances in these stories that are not outdated, and could even be timeless, as it seems the ‘human condition’ will never change.

With The Bad Glazier, he conveys how humans are ones to start forest fires to see if trees really burn as easily as other say it might (right?), of course this is meant figuratively, but it is indeed a very human action to tempt fate and experience anxiety for no reason. It reminds me of that saying “Act now, apologize later.”

Stories like The Bad Glazier are more about his thoughts and philosophy about living. Others included Get High (title self explanatory) and Lets Beat up the Poor!, wherein a total what-the-heck-why-is-he-beating-up-this-random-hobo moment is followed by a revelation of his belief that getting in a fight with a less fortunate person is actually very philanthropic. And it is, in a way, there is probably no better or more believable way to tell someone “I respect you, even though I’m richer.”

In a separate vein, stories like The Widow, The Old Acrobat, The Eyes of the Poor, and The Window draw upon his observations of the weary and frayed side of humanity, whether it is from death, age, or misfortune. The Old Acrobat really reminded me of those burnt of celebrities nowadays; only in Baudelaire’s time they knew when to give it a rest.

The remaining stories: The Cake, The Pauper’s Toy, The Counterfeit Coin, and The Soup and the Clouds, all have a sense of whimsy, like he just made poetry out of a passing event or thought. The Cake can be seen as an analogy of how people can take even their speculations too seriously, “so there exists a magnificent land where bread is called cake, a delicacy so rare that it suffices to beget a perfectly fratricidal war!” It exposes a human truth, and this may seem similar to the first group of stories I mentioned, but it does not encourage the reader to do something, like get high or strive to live in the moment once in a while or think outside the box when you wish to show sympathy. Instead it’s just like some moment, however brief (like the exchanged laughter between the children in The Pauper’s Toy) or however long (like the whole affair leading up to the revelation in The Counterfeit Coin), that has been captured and described. He doesn’t make any hints towards what we should have ‘learned,’ rather, he just leaves it there for us to make of it what we will. The Soup and the Clouds especially seemed very in the moment — he is just thinking about clouds when his beloved punches him. We could draw something about how reality often forces us to ground ourselves, whether from practicality or love, but we don’t feel as if we need to draw anything from it at the same time.

These were supposed to be very controversial in Baudelaire’s day. Stripped of any kind of pretense, his work was presented in a striking clarity that only tortured geniuses seemed to see. And tortured geniuses often seem to gain the recognition they deserve posthumously — think of how Van Gogh never sold a single painting in his life and now one can go for something like 150 million dollars, inflation adjusted. When poetry was something that was supposed to idealize and describe beauty, Baudelaire came in and made it grotesque and real. I don’t think this means that people nowadays are more aware of the ugly side of human nature and more cynical, but the idea that someone’s work can only be recognized in another era — I wonder if Baudelaire wrote something about it.

(Um, can humanity be considered a literary work? @_@)

A CLOSER Look at Realism

In class, in addition to looking at paintings by Realist painters, we talked about the response to Realism by looking at excerpts from Baudelaire’s Prose Poems.  In our transition between Flaubert and Baudelaire, we watched this clip discussing notions of Realism from the 2004 Mike Nichols film, Closer.  

This scene is between Clive Owen and Natalie Portman at a photography exhibit entitled “Strangers”–the two characters are discussing the photograph of Natalie Portman’s character, “Alice.”

 

 

We discussed this clip in relation to Flaubert’s short story, “A Simple Heart” and how it might criticize that text, as well as how this clip relates to Baudelaire’s take on Realism.

Here, again, any additional comments that were or weren’t made in class, or that you would like to add here, are very welcome.

 

–Daphne