What do you all think of this poem? What do you think he is trying to convey?

Question

THE ALBATROSS by Charles Baudelaire
Often, for their amusement, bored sailors
take albatrosses, vast seabirds, that sleep
in the air, indolent fellow travellers,
following the ship skimming the deep.

No sooner are they set down on the boards,
than those kings of the azure, clumsy, shamefully
let their vast white wings, like oars,
trail along their sides, piteously.

Winged traveller, gauche, gross, useless, laughable,
now, one of them, with a pipe stem, prods you,
who, a moment ago, were beautiful:
Another, limping, mimics the cripple who flew.

The Poet bears a likeness to that prince of the air,
who mocks at slingshots, and haunts the winds:
On earth, an exile among the scornful, where
he is hampered, in walking, by his giant wings.



I thought that maybe he was comparing this bird to himself? What do you think he is saying the bird is like?

Answer 1

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

Oh, we have often loved Baudelaire, and this frustrating picture of the poor albatross is such a well painted moment that he evokes, again, our love for the scorned and outcast poet.

Yes, dear, he is comparing the suffering of the bird to that of the poet, who, in modern society, lives like a child among bullies, unable to earn his living from poetry, and ridiculed for his talent of loving the language so deeply and publicly.

What you really need are some other translations of this poem, and I will provide a few different shots of the last verse:

The Poet is like the prince of the clouds,
Haunting the tempest and laughing at the archer;
Exiled on earth amongst the shouting people,
His giant's wings hinder him from walking.

— Geoffrey Wagner, Selected Poems of Charles Baudelaire (NY: Grove Press, 1974)

Poets are like these lords of sky and cloud,
Who ride the storm and mock the bow's taut strings,
Exiled on earth amid a jeering crowd,
Prisoned and palsied by their giant wings.

— Jacques LeClercq, Flowers of Evil (Mt Vernon, NY: Peter Pauper Press, 1958)

The Poet is like that wild inheritor of the cloud,
A rider of storms, above the range of arrows and slings;
Exiled on earth, at bay amid the jeering crowd,
He cannot walk for his unmanageable wings.

— George Dillon, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)

The Poet, like this monarch of the clouds,
Despising archers, rides the storm elate.
But, stranded on the earth to jeering crowds,
The great wings of the giant baulk his gait.

— Roy Campbell, Poems of Baudelaire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)

And now for our own enjoyment (pour s'amuser), let us read the original french and weep for the sweetness of words:

L'Albatros

Souvent, pour s'amuser, les hommes d'équipage
Prennent des albatros, vastes oiseaux des mers,
Qui suivent, indolents compagnons de voyage,
Le navire glissant sur les gouffres amers.

À peine les ont-ils déposés sur les planches,
Que ces rois de l'azur, maladroits et honteux,
Laissent piteusement leurs grandes ailes blanches
Comme des avirons traîner à côté d'eux.

Ce voyageur ailé, comme il est gauche et veule!
Lui, naguère si beau, qu'il est comique et laid!
L'un agace son bec avec un brûle-gueule,
L'autre mime, en boitant, l'infirme qui volait!

Le Poète est semblable au prince des nuées
Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l'archer;
Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées,
Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher.

— Charles Baudelaire

Source(s):

One of the best places to read the original and many translations of Baudelaire's poetry is the website http://fleursdumal.org/toc_alphabetical.… which includes both written and recorded instances of his work.