Analysis of Obsession
Charles Baudelaire 1821 (Paris) – 1867 (Paris)
Grands bois, vous m'effrayez comme des cathédrales;
Vous hurlez comme l'orgue; et dans nos coeurs maudits,
Chambres d'éternel deuil où vibrent de vieux râles,
Répondent les échos de vos De profundis.
Je te hais, Océan! tes bonds et tes tumultes,
Mon esprit les retrouve en lui; ce rire amer
De l'homme vaincu, plein de sanglots et d'insultes,
Je l'entends dans le rire énorme de la mer
Comme tu me plairais, ô nuit! sans ces étoiles
Dont la lumière parle un langage connu!
Car je cherche le vide, et le noir, et le nu!
Mais les ténèbres sont elles-mêmes des toiles
Où vivent, jaillissant de mon oeil par milliers,
Des êtres disparus aux regards familiers.
Great woods, you frighten me like cathedrals;
You roar like the organ; and in our cursed hearts,
Rooms of endless mourning where old death-rattles sound,
Respond the echoes of your De profundis.
I hate you, Ocean! your bounding and your tumult,
My mind finds them within itself; that bitter laugh
Of the vanquished man, full of sobs and insults,
I hear it in the immense laughter of the sea.
How I would like you, Night! without those stars
Whose light speaks a language I know!
For I seek emptiness, darkness, and nudity!
But the darkness is itself a canvas
Upon which live, springing from my eyes by thousands,
Beings with understanding looks, who have vanished.
— Translated by William Aggeler
You forests, like cathedrals, are my dread:
You roar like organs. Our curst hearts, like cells
Where death forever rattles on the bed,
Echo your de Profundis as it swells.
My spirit hates you, Ocean! sees, and loathes
Its tumults in your own. Of men defeated
The bitter laugh, that's full of sobs and oaths,
Is in your own tremendously repeated.
How you would please me, Night! without your stars
Which speak a foreign dialect, that jars
On one who seeks the void, the black, the bare.
Yet even your darkest shade a canvas forms
Whereon my eye must multiply in swarms
Familiar looks of shapes no longer there.
— Translation by Roy Campbell
Scheme | AAAA ABAC ADD AAA AAXA XXAA ADX AAX B EAEA AXAX AAC AAC X |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11111111 111111111 1111111111 11111111 1111111111 101111101110 111111111 111011111 11111111 11111111 11101101101 11111111111 11111111 1111011 1111011010 111010001011 111010111101 010101111 111101100110 111101011101 10101111001 111000110101 1111110111 11101011 111100100100 1010101010 011110111110 10101011110 0101101 1101010111 11110101111 1101010101 10111111 1101110101 1101111010 0101111101 10110100010 1111110111 110101011 1111010101 11011010101 11111001 0101111101 0101110 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 2,149 |
Words | 356 |
Sentences | 22 |
Stanzas | 14 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 3, 3, 4, 4, 3, 3, 1, 4, 4, 3, 3, 1 |
Lines Amount | 44 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 111 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 25 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 26, 2023
- 1:49 min read
- 164 Views
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"Obsession" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4990/obsession>.
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