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Comparative Literary Analysis / Edgar Allan Poe
Comparative Literary Analysis / Edgar Allan Poe
Romanticism in simple words
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Charles Baudelaire: Romantic, Parnassian, and Symbolist
Often compared to the American poet Edgar Allen Poe, the French poet Charles Baudelaire has become well-known for his fascination with death, melancholy, and evil and his otherwise eccentric yet contemplative style. These associations have deemed him as a “patron saint of modernist poetry” while at the same time closely tying his style in with the turbulent revolutionary movements in France and Europe during the 19th century (Haviland, screens 5-10). By comparing three of his poems, “Spleen,” “Elevation,” and “To One Who Is Too Gay,” from his masterpiece The Flowers of Evil, three evident commonalities can be found throughout the works in the influence that the three 19th-century styles of Romanticism, Parnassianism, and Symbolism had on his poetry.
Charles-Pierre Baudelaire was born on April 9, 1821 in Paris, France to the parents of Francois Baudelaire and Caroline Defayis (Christohersen, Biography). It was his father, Francois, who taught Charles to appreciate the arts, because he was also a mildly talented poet and painter himself. In February 1827, Francois died when Charles was only six, after which Charles and his mother developed an extremely close relationship until she remarried in 1828 to Major Jacques Aupick (Veinotte; Christohersen, Biography).
The family moved to wherever Aupick was posted for the military and Baudelaire began his education at the Collège Royal in Lyons, then transferred to the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. It was at the latter that he began to write poetry and develop moods of depression, and in 1839 he was expelled for being unruly. Eventually he became a student of law at the Ecole de Droit but in reality lived a “free life” and it was here that he came into contact with the literary world for the first time. He also contracted VD, which was to be the cause of his death years later.
Aupick, hoping to draw Baudelaire away from the lifestyle he was living, sent him on a ship for India in 1841. Baudelaire jumped ship and returned to France almost a year later, but his travels came to be an enormous influence on his work. On his return, Baudelaire received a huge inheritance from his parents but spent it so rapidly on drugs, clothes, fine foods, fine w...
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...ects these two stanzas by speaking of the rain. Each of the first three stanzas begin with “Quand” or “When,” and other notable literary devices he uses in this poem in particular include his alliteration, his use of nasal words, and his punctuation (Peyre).
In conclusion, it is the combination of Baudelaire’s eccentricity as well as the influence that his life and culture had on his writing that have made him such a significant figure in French 19-century literature. By selecting and analyzing “Elevation,” “Spleen,” and “To One Who Is
Too Gay,” three significantly contrasting poems from The Flowers of Evil, his style acts as an important common element throughout all three. Although an important figurehead in modern poetry, he is similarly dubbed as having an enormous influence on the Romantic movement, the Symbolist movement, and the Parnassian movement, as much as he was influenced by these movements himself. And because of the turbulence of this revolutionary period in France, it is fair to say that Baudelaire’s greatness could have only been derived from “standing on the shoulders of giants” (Newton).
Poetry’s role is evaluated according to what extent it mirrors, shapes and is reshaped by historical events. In the mid-19th century, some critics viewed poetry as “an expression of the poet’s personality, a manifestation of the poet’s intuition and of the social and historical context which shaped him” ( Preminger, Warnke, Hardison 511). Analysis of the historical, social, political and cultural events at a certain time helps the reader fully grasp a given work. The historical approach is necessary in order for given allusions to be situated in their social, political and cultural background. In order to escape intentional fallacy, a poet should relate his work to universal
The speaker begins the poem an ethereal tone masking the violent nature of her subject matter. The poem is set in the Elysian Fields, a paradise where the souls of the heroic and virtuous were sent (cite). Through her use of the words “dreamed”, “sweet women”, “blossoms” and
From the very first word of the poem, there is a command coming from an unnamed speaker. This establishes a sense of authority and gives the speaker a dominant position where they are dictating the poem to the reader rather than a collaborative interacti...
The barbarous images illustrated in the poems of tortured souls were so harsh to picture and not even experience in real life. In the first poem “Strange Fruit,” we get this image of discrimination
1970, pp. 7-8. Rpt. In The Chelsea House Library of Literary Criticism. New York.:Chelsea House Publishers, 1988.
...Chrie, D., (ed.), Nineteenth Century Literature Criticism. Detroit, MI: Gale Research Company, 1986. Vo. 13, pp. 53-111.
At the age of 21, his intestinal operation led to appendicitis. Henri was on bed rest for most of 1890 and to help him occupy his time, his mother bought him a set of paints. That was the turning point in Henri’s life. He decided to give up his career in law for a career in art. Matisse himself said, “It was as if I had been called. Henceforth I did not lead my life. It led me” (Getlein 80). Soon after, Henri began to take classes at the Academie Julian to prepare himself for the entrance examination at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (Essers 7). Henri failed his first attempt, leading to his departure from the Academie. He then enrolled at the Ecole des Arts decoratifs and that is where his friendship with Albert Marquet began. They started working alongside of Gustave Moreau, a distinguished teacher at Ecole des Beaux-Arts, even though they had not been accepted (Essers 12). In 1895, Henri finally passed the Beaux-Arts entrance examination and his pathway to his new career choice had officially begun.
Free form broke the walls of structure and created something new, through no form, we get a form that doesn’t rely on old traditional methods and can create poetry just as worthy. As form changes, our choice in words also changes, words create a deeper meaning, if used correctly, but with deeper meaning, people create something new; a new interpretation, creates a new idea of thinking. Through the great word choice of Baudelaire, the free form style Baudelaire uses, and the viewpoint, that complements the style, we get one of the poems in Paris Spleen, “The Firing Range and the Graveyard.”
1. Charles Baudelaire, The Parisian Prowler, 2nd ed. trans. Edward K. Kaplan (Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1997),
sent to Paris to study law and while he was there, he became interested in
recognized as a writer. He became one of the most famous and well paid French
The use of the word “heart” emphasises this passion as the heart is considered the most important organ and so demonstrates how his passion (the “summer” in the sentence) is alive. Within these three poems, the use of nature as a mechanism impacted the poems, allowing them to convey meanings in an ambiguous sense yet still get across the general meaning of the poem.
Gibbs, Beverly Jean. "Impressionism as a Literary Movement." The Modern Language Journal 36.4 (1952): 175-83. JSTOR. Web. 14 Jan. 2014.
Baudelaire’s Parfum exotique, written in 1857 and published in Les Fleurs du Mal in 1868, is a sonnet that seeks to provide a transition from sensuality to spirituality, a theme typical of Baudelaire. Through using idealistic language and a vocabulary that appeals to the senses, this is achieved in the original text. However, does James N. McGowan provide an effective translation of Baudelaire? An effective poetic translation can be defined, in the words of Francis Jones , as ‘creating a poem in the target language which is readable and enjoyable as an independent, literary text.’ It is convincing to argue that McGowan’s translation is an effective one to greater extent; however, there are some decisions that are instrumental in nature which affects its overall effectiveness in delivering
French deistic philosopher and author; b. at Geneva June 28, 1712; d. at Ermenonville (28 m. n.e. of Paris) July 2, 1778. His mother died at his birth, and his father, a dissipated and violent-tempered man, paid little attention to the son's training, and finally deserted him. The latter developed a passion for reading, with a special fondness for Plutarch's Lives. Apprenticed first to a notary and then to a coppersmith, he ran away (1728) to escape the rigid discipline, and, after wandering for several days, he fell in with Roman Catholic priests at Consignon in Savoy, who turned him over to Madame de Warens at Annecy, and she sent him to an educational institution at Turin. Here he duly abjured Protestantism, and next served in various households, in one of which he was charged with theft. After more wanderings he was at Chambery (1730), from which Madame de Warens had removed. In her household he spent eight years diverting himself in the enjoyment of nature, the study of music, the reading of the English, German, and French philosophers and chemistry, pursuing the study of mathematics and Latin, and enjoying the playhouse and opera. He next spent eighteen months at Venice as secretary of the French ambassador, Comte de Montaignu (1744-45). Up to this time, when he was thirty-nine, his life, the details of which he publishes in his Confessions (Geneva, 1782), may be described as subterranean. He now returned to Paris, where his opera Les Muses galantes failed, copied music, and was secretary of Madame Dupin. Here he came into association with Diderot, Grimm, D'Alembert, Holbach, and Madame d'Epinay, and was admitted as a contributor to the Encyclopedie; and his gifts of entertainment, reckless manner, and boundless vanity attracted attention. With the Discours sur les sciences et les arts (Paris, 1750), a prize essay in which he set forth the paradox of the superiority of the savage state, he proclaimed his gospel of "back to nature." His operetta Devin du village (1752) met with great success. His second sensational writing appeared: Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes (1753), against the inequalities of society. His fame was then assured. In 1754 he revisited Geneva, was received with great acclamation, and called himself henceforth " citizen of Geneva." In 1756, upon invitation of Madame d'Epinay, he retired to a cottage (afterward " The