Loss

clown
2017

Loss of Halo

11 thoughts on “Loss”

  1. In his book “All that is Solid Melts into Air,” Marshall Berman discusses the concept of modernity and how it has affected society. He argues that modernity has brought about many positive changes, such as increased freedom, opportunity, and prosperity. However, it has also brought about loss and alienation, as traditional ways of life and values are replaced by new ones.

    In the context of dignity and loss, Berman’s book can be seen as a reflection on the ways in which modernity has challenged and undermined the dignity of individuals and communities. As traditional ways of life are disrupted and replaced by new ones, people can feel a loss of identity and connection to their communities, which can lead to feelings of indignity and disrespect.

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  2. For my response I decided to read the poem Solitude. I thought this was a very important poem for everything that we are facing today since many of us are in solitude, or at least are more alone than before. People have reacted in very different ways to this solitude,, many see it as a thriving point, but for others this is a difficult concept. In the poem the narrorator critisizes the perspective of the journalist who says that solitude is where you find the demons, he gives solitude a very negative connotation. The narrartos disagees with this point and says that solitude is negative only for a lazy mind who will not be able to do anything with their solitude, however, if you are a thinker, being alone could actually be a very positive thing.

    It made me think of two quotes that I have heard of previously. One is by Thomas Mann author of Death in Venice and other Tales in which he says this about solitude, “Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous – to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.” I belive that what Baudelaire was trying to explain in his poem is that solitude can be a beautoful thing if done correctly, you can learn much about yourself and you can learn from yourself and your thoughts.

    The other quote is that by Hermann Hesse, author of the book Siddartha, who explains, “We must become so alone, so utterly alone, that we withdraw into our innermost self. It is a way of bitter suffering. But then our solitude is overcome, we are no longer alone, for we find that our innermost self is the spirit, that it is God, the indivisible. And suddenly we find ourselves in the midst of the world, yet undisturbed by its multiplicity, for our innermost soul we know ourselves to be one with all being.”

    Using the poem by Baudelaire and the quotes by Hesse and Mann, I made a drawing of what solitude means to me.

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  3. Baudelaire’s poem, ‘Be Drunk’ focuses in on the crucial and ever-changing conceptions of time. While other poems we discussed in class, such as ‘The Eyes of the Poor’ center on human relationships in an urban context, ‘Be Drunk’ meditates on man’s relationship to time. His poem conveys an aversion to the overwhelming influence of time on everyday life, which has been heightened within the context of Paris’s modernization and previous decades of industrialization and rapid urbanization. Drunkenness becomes an ideal because it allows one to lose their attention to time.

    As the poem begins, Baudelaire urges the reader to “be drunk always.” He uses hyperbole when he writes that whether or not to be drunk is “the only question,” as if it is the only matter of importance. The reason for this is to escape “horrible burden of Time.” By capitalizing time as if it is a proper noun, Baudelaire personifies it as a tyrant, whose influence dominates the city dweller. The imagery that time “crushes your shoulders, and bends you earthward,” evokes oppressive power which causes one to bend ‘earthward’, which connotes one’s grave, their death. This language has a simple poignance: time rules over people, ages them, and leads them to their end.

    Next, Baudelaire asserts that one must be continually drunk without pause — and he means this in both a literal and metaphorical sense. You can “take your pick”: become drunk “on wine”, or drunk “on poetry, on virtue.” As an experienced poet himself, he likens appreciation of poetry, or engagement in writing prose, to intoxication. This characterizes poetry as having potency, perhaps to underline poetry’s aesthetic value. With the notion of being drunk on virtue, he employs irony, as drunkenness is generally regarded as sinful. This paradox effectively draws attention to virtue with the idea that it can completely overcome a person’s senses. It brings up the question: What does one who is drunk on virtue look like? Maybe Baudelaire means devoting all of one’s attention to moral inquiry, or being in awe of what is considered morally good or desirable. But what does Baudelaire regard as virtuous?

    The next three scenes he mentions — a palace, a ditch, a bedroom — seem disconnected: awakening on the steps of a palace evokes extravagance, as if one has passed out during a lavish celebration, awakening in a ditch evokes disorientation, awakening in one’s bedroom is dull and lonely. Perhaps this is to convey that where you are when you awaken from drunken sleep is unimportant. What is important, again, is to continue being drunk: if you ask “of the wind, of the wave, a star, bird, clock,” what hour it is, they will reply ‘the hour to be drunk!’ What is interesting about this imagery is that the natural world of both living and non-living things and its movements is presented as a measurement of time in addition to the clock. All of these elements, however, will offer the exact same answer that Baudelaire stated previously: be continually drunk, do not be a ‘racked slave’ of ‘Time’.

    ‘Be Drunk’ is a concise and repetitive poem, but it is not simple nor explicit in its meaning. I believe it connects well to Baudelaire’s commentary on the changing ways of living in Paris, and is a hyperbolic expression of he believes one should live. I think it is fair to say that he is critical of how time is so important to society, industry, and individuals that it enslaves them. It also may connect to Baudelaire’s influence on the Decadent movement, which aestheticized pleasure and indulgence, instead of focusing on societal progress and upholding conventions. Also, I wanted to mention that when I read this poem, I was reminded of the poet Arthur Rimbaud, who wrote “the best known of Paris Spleen’s offspring,” Illuminations and A Season in Hell. Rimbaud was a Symbolist poet, who was often drunk, but unlike Baudelaire intended, he did this not to escape time but to elevate his artistic capacity: “The Poet makes himself a seer by a long, rational and immense disordering of all the senses,” he writes in an extract from the ‘Voyant’ letter. I think that Rimbaud’s approach drunkenness is an interesting comparison to Baudelaire’s, as the former claims it is enlightening, while the latter emphasizes its incapacitating effect.

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  4. The Eyes of the Poor Poem by Charles Baudelaire

    In this poem, Charles creates an image for himself as a poet longing to create a union of souls within a woman he loves until the end of the poem. As a dissolute man, he talks about the cafes he and the woman spend time in. He yearns to be one with her soul in a manner that eludes both of them. Even though part of the Romantic aesthetic was the idealisation of the pastoral, Baudelaire shows the side that reflects the urban side of the Romantic. He describes the cafe that they sat in with full details and talks about all the decorations and aspects of the cafe. The narrator almost celebrates the cafe and its interior which represent the wealth for which the narrator shames after her saw three poor people in the middle of the road when he looks at their glasses and carafes which are bigger than their thirst. While the narrator thinks about the possible naïve thoughts of these three people who were in rags, regarding the inequality they faced, without rage, the woman says that she could no longer handle those people and asked the waiter to get rid of them. The narrator was disappointed and disliked the thoughts of the girl he admired and realised that even those who are in love with each other can lack communication skills. The narrator looked at these poor men with sympathy and never looked at them with disgust or pity like his lover did. He tried to guess what they might be thinking of when they were staring at the cafe, but at the mean time his lover looks at these poor men as inferiors who are not worthy and are useless for thinking about and she thinks that these poor men are stalking them. The narrator wants to create equality and that everyone regardless of their status are seen as one. In this poem, this shame is the source of his spleen because while he wants to oppose to the inequality that they experienced, he is stuck in the cafe with comfort and with his lover, who apparently does not understand him and thinks in a completely different way about the crucial issue of inequality. The narrator portrays woman as cold and obtuse.

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  5. The Crowd was a poem that really struck a cord with me. As a little kid, I was often always the one getting myself in the activities of public crowds. Street performers, singers, magicians, I always wanted to put myself in a different part of the world. With the nature of the world today, the idea of surrounding myself in crowd is daunting and frightening, and could mean death. The way things can change so rapidly makes me really miss and value those moments of blissful curiosity that I had as a kid.

    To get to the point of the actual poem itself I think it touches upon the concept of modernity and an essence of dignity. Modernity, as I understood it from Baudelaire and Berman, is a fine balance between risking dignity and trying something new, to maintain certain stabilities that we value on a day to day basis. Like adopting new forms of social media or channels of sharing because communication is a key and stable part of human communication. The poem here emphasizes that when people, in a sense, hold their dignity too high up on a pedestal, they fail to interact with the ideas that may be hidden in the minds of people from different classes. When you put yourself in the “Eyes of the Poor” you have the opportunity to see almost everything in a different light. Having that perspective I believe is what has the opportunity to push us further into modernity. “Who walks alone with his thoughts draws a singular intoxication from this universal communion.” This way of life is intoxicating indeed and it restricts the growth of people as a whole. Indeed it is a safe path; There are no ways you can struggle or feel anguish in the thoughts that fit your view. But the risking of your own ideas of your reality for other world views can provide unimaginable rewards. With that I want to end with this quote from the poem:

    “What men call love is petty, limited, feeble compared with this ineffable orgy, with this sacred whoredom of the soul which renders itself entire, poetry and charity, to the sudden unexpected, to the passing unknown.”

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  6. The poem I wanted to present was the stranger because it was short yet impactful since the stranger reacted strongly to the narrator’s questions. The more answers he gave, the more I could picture what the idea Baudelaire had and what values he cared for. For example, it is clear that he hates the capitalism or the utilitarianism or just the concept of the corporate machine when Baudelaire, through the stranger, says he hates gold, symbolizing the wealth and work that earns it. On the other hand, he easily accepts and praises beauty which symbolizes art and aesthetics. At first, before the lecture, I thought the stranger said that he didn’t know/care for many of the things the narrator asked him such as family or friends and replied that he liked the clouds instead, I thought this was related to nihilism or existentialism where nothing in this world matters, even what is commonly valued such as friends or family. However, after listening to the lecture, it made sense that the stranger, representing the new modern age, would love changes which is represented by cloud.

    This is a short haiku poem I came up with that imitates the Paris Spleen:

    Social Distancing
    The new norm and expected
    Manners of new world

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  7. Eyes of the Poor:

    One theme I noticed in his prose was the issue of poverty, interclass encounters with ‘the poor’ and Baudelaire’s impression on these encounters. Poems like:

    – The Eyes of the Poor
    – Knock Down the Poor
    – The False Coin

    The Eyes of the Poor begins with the scene that two lovers sit in the café.

    The café that they sit ‘‘was glittering. The description is almost celebratory of the café and its interior which represents the wealth for which the narrator shames after he saw three poor people in the middle of the road when he looks at their glasses and carafes which are ‘‘bigger than (their) thirst.’’

    While the narrator thinks about possible naïve thoughts of these three people who were in rags, regarding the inequality that they faced, without rage, the woman says that she could not bear those people with their eyes ‘out on stalks’ and wants to tell the waiter to get rid of them. The narrator is disappointed by the thoughts of his lover and realises that even those who love one another cannot communicate each other.

    Baudelaire looks at the poor not by pity or disgust but by a sympathy. He tries to predict what they might be thinking of when they were looking at the café, whereas his lover sees them as inferiors who are not worthy for thinking about and are stalking them. He wants to become one with the poor.

    Also, when he was looking at the poor people, with the effect of the song, he ‘‘not only was moved by that family of eyes, but (he) felt a bit ashamed of of glasses and pitchers’’ which, he thinks, are bigger than their thirst.

    In this poem, I see the shame as the source because while he wants to oppose to the inequality that they experienced, he is in the café with comfort and with his lover who does not understand him and thinks in completely different way about this crucial matter of inequality.

    Additionally, this poem shows Baudelaire’s approach to the women in the Paris Spleen. In the beginning of the poem he blame his lover of being “the best example of feminine impenetrability”.s Woman is portrayed as cold and obtuse like other poems in the book.

    Further, there are very interesting elements of aesthetics in this poem that Baudelaire explore. He explores in depth the beauty and grandeur of the cafe he and his lover are sitting in together. It is a symbol of the modernisation and change that is happening at the time across Paris through the introduction of boulevards and similar structures. A true shift in social dynamics.

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  8. We were a civilization before this pandemic and we will be one afterwards. However, life as we knew it will be no longer. The Stranger is just that, a stranger. Those you knew so fondly, whose company you enjoyed so intently will diminish into mere strangers. We’re forever changing

    —Hello friend!
    –I’m sorry.
    —Sorry?
    –I don’t do that anymore
    —But dear friend, I have missed you greatly
    –Friend? All I had was my own

    A hug between friends evaporates to a glance between strangers.

    In the Poem “The Stranger”, the love felt for clouds depicts our current situation perfectly. During such a transition, one realizes that both the world and others are ever changing. The friends you had before the pandemic will not be the ones you will find afterwards. Their way of life will have transitioned and what was considered pleasantries before suddenly becomes unnecessary human contact. The friendliest of all facing anxiety from the slightest touch of another.

    —Look at the clouds
    –Clouds?
    —Yes. Goodbye Stranger

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  9. XXXV: Windows (Les Fenêtres)

    This poem is about the power of imagination, of Baudelaire specifically, who walks through the streets of Paris and looks at open and closed windows. The poem is divided into three main parts, and he starts off the first part with a paradoxical consideration, implying that there are two ways of seeing; seeing the visible, and above all seeing the invisible. The second part suggests that he is on top of a roof as he tells a story of a woman that he can see inside her house, through her open window, extrapolating her life based on the few facts that he can observe. This shows his ability to reflect and live the life of others from the inside, along with writing or thinking about their stories for them. Then in the third part, he concludes with a reflection, presenting the moral of his story, in the form of an imaginary dialogue that directly involves the reader.

    Baudelaire looks at both, the literal and metaphorical windows of his imagination. It is to be noted that windows define an inside and an outside, with two completely different points of view. There are also infinite possibilities in what is seen based on which side the person is on as well as the transparency of windows, their depth, and whether or not curtains are put up, all of which play a role as they are the surface of observation and reading.

    The windows frame images of modem life and images of his desire into self-conscious realizations. They are a noticeable threshold capable of framing or blocking out the scene, which indicates that anyone looking inside or outside the window is considered to be a flâneur (“a man who saunters around observing society” or “a person who walks the city in order to experience it”). The closed windows give an analogy to the representational space of a framed picture that mediates his imaginative experience of Paris and allows his translation of that experience into language, into the first-person narrative that he gives. On the other hand, the open window gives an analogy of all the social and technological advances of the era, Baudelaire criticizes the resulting shift in attitude towards knowing everything rather than enjoying life.

    If we compare this to the current situation of people staying at home all the time due to the coronavirus, we can parallelly observe that the Zoom screens or video calls act as windows. There are also infinite possibilities for the stories that can be told about the lives of people, based on what can be observed and seen, as well as what is heard. The most transparent lives are seen through the open windows; the screens that are turned on, and you can see what the person is wearing as well as the backgrounds behind them, so you create a story for them. On the other hand, there are the people who turn off their cameras; these are the closed windows, that allow you to see more, and think more. Lastly, there are the virtual backgrounds, which make you question further, where the person is, or why they put the backgrounds up, whether it is just for fun or for the sake of covering an element of their life up. But at the end of the day, the question is, does it help you live? To feel what you are?

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