The Reading of “Correspondances” by Charles Baudelaire The

The Reading of “Correspondances” by Charles Baudelaire The poem “Correspondances” is one of the best-known poems by Charles Baudelaire and was included in his collection Flowers of Evil (Les fleurs du mal), published in 1857, the same year Flaubert’s Madame Bovary appeared. Baudelaire creates an immediate dissonant tension in the title of his collection, Flowers of Evil, since he associates flowers with evil. An initial look at the poem reveals that it is still written in the traditional form of a sonnet, which does not necessarily indicate any major poetic changes. However, a close reading of the four stanzas challenges the associative thinking ability of the reader. Even though the specific meaning of each word in itself does not present any particular difficulty for the reader, each word gains presence only in connection with the following words. All the words in the first line are easily accessible: nature, temple, living, pillars. However, the reader has to follow the sequences of comparisons, of correspondences that Baudelaire has implanted in the first line: the poetic invention starts with the comparison of nature to a temple. Once that comparison has been made, the reader can visualize that the temple has pillars. Yet, the pillars are “vivants” living pillars. Living refers back to nature, but endows the pillars with a novel characteristic, somewhat outside of the normal perception of pillars. The pillars relate to the temple, the “living” changes the nature of the pillars and at the same time the “living” relates back to “nature,” which has undergone a change of perception, since different characteristics have been attributed to “nature.” Interestingly, in the next line it is not nature that speaks, but rather the “pillars.” However, the pillars do not convey a clear message, since confused words come from them, not all the time, only sometimes (parfois). The first two lines have established a series of associations, correspondences that reconnect the poetic situation back to the title of the poem.

Once the poet has created these correspondences, the poetic thinking has to stay on the same level of “alogical” continuation. Grammatically speaking, the pillars begin to release confused words (confuses paroles). The uncertainty is further elevated by the adjective “confused.” A sense of flowing and uncertainty emanates from the first two lines. That atmosphere is further elaborated in the next two lines: L’homme y passé à travers des forets de symboles/qui l’observent avec des regards familiers.” (Man walks through a forests of symbols that look at him with familiar eyes). In the third line, a person enters into the scenery. “Man” (homme) walks through a forest of symbols that take on the human activity of looking at him with familiar eyes. Yet, the ambiguity of the third line is further underlined by the little word “y” (there), which can refer to nature, the temple, or even the pillars. Somehow, the reader has to enter into the world of “confused words” and “forests of symbols,” imaginative situations without boundaries. The entire poem creates a state of vagueness and expansion, which is ultimately anchored in the word “vaste.” What greater immensity can be imagined by the reader than the “vastness of night and clarity,” as articulated in the third line of the second stanza. Throughout the poem, Baudelaire has chosen to create an atmosphere of expanding the imaginative possibilities of the reader’s mind. The noun “echoes” in the first line of the second stanza clearly continues the poetic thinking of widening the imaginative space. Echoes don’t project clearly defined boundaries; the internal movement of the words suggests “expansion” in space and at the same time the disappearance of the sounds, which actually blend into each other, while at the same time fading into silence. The activity of poetic expansion is inherent in nouns like night, clarity, perfumes, colors, and sounds. And it is no surprise that the word “comme” (like) is prominently displayed throughout the poem (comme de longs échos, vaste comme la nuit, comme les

hautbois, comme les prairies, comme l’ambre), which reinforces the continuous relationship with the title of the poem, “Correspondences.” The last line of the second stanza brings the culmination of the correspondences. “The perfumes, the colors, and the sounds respond to each other.” Not only does Baudelaire introduce the interaction of different media, but he also has chosen three words that by their very nature cannot be placed into clearly defined boundaries. The somewhat ethereal atmosphere of the poem explodes in that stanza. The next two stanzas of the poem continue the notion of expansion and immensity. The ethereal nature of perfumes is brought into contact with the oboes that have the expansion of infinite things like the amber, the musk, the benzoin, and the incense—unusual substances, yet musical in their nature, and then “incense” that relates back to the delicate fading nature of perfumes-- present and simultaneously disappearing like the echoes and the sounds. Baudelaire even uses the word “l’expansion” (“expansion”) in the first line of the fourth stanza. Yet, he is not satisfied with just the word “expansion,” which he enlarges through “choses infinies,” which are further intensified by the strange combination of “l’ambre, le musc, le benjoin, et l’encens.” And finally, no human being is singing the “ecstasies of the mind,” but rather “the myrrh, the musk, and the amber, which are indirectly also connected to the “choses infinies.” The poem could be considered an orchestration of interactions and comparisons, which connect all the situations in the poem back to the title “Correspondences.” A further investigation of the poem would include a detailed analysis of the sounds that Baudelaire has used in the composition of the words to uncover whether a clear correspondence could be established between the sound quality of the nouns.

Whatever the attraction of the poem “Correspondences” might be and still is can be underlined by the numerous translations into English and other languages it has received, and there seems to be no end to seeing new translations every year. It can be said that the greatest variations in the translations of a poem into other languages happens in the moments of greatest ambiguity. The multiple translations attached to these comments seem to support that assumption. Even the word “pillars” in the first line: Three different solutions can be identified: pillars, colonnades, and the omission of the word “pillars” in Arthur Symons rendering. The expression “Confuses paroles” does not have an immediate equivalent in English. The variations move between “mystic speech,” “perplexing messages,” “words emerge confused,” “words of abstruse sense,” “mystic languages,” and “confused words.” Other ambiguous expressions confirm the idea that the greatest variety of translation differences can be identified in such passages as “forests of symbols,” (forets de symboles), “profonde unité,” (profound unity), “vaste comme la clarté,” (wide like clarity), (vast as night). No single translation can fully transport the meanings into another language, as verified by the different solutions that the various translators have created. Yet, as no interpretation can ever do justice to the intricate, complex, and delicate interactions that Baudelaire has created in the poem, translators will continue to unravel the mystery of that poem through new translations.