‘Les Plaintes d’un Icare’: An Appreciation

Abstract

Of the many indisputably great poems Charles Baudelaire gifted to French and world poetry, there is one I carry in my memory at all times, learnt in the original language. It belongs to the small group of additional poems that were published in the first posthumous edition of Les Fleurs du mal of 1868. This group includes such wonderful mature lyrics as ‘L’Examen de minuit’, ‘Recueillement’, and ‘Le Gouffre’. But the one I love is distinguished by its literary – if not literal – wings: ‘Les Plaintes d’un Icare’.

            There are two reasons why I admire this poem so much. Firstly, I see it as a key to Baudelaire’s tragedy, arguably the closest there is to a true epitaph. Secondly, I find the rhythm and music spellbinding, even electrifying. Baudelaire rebukes his admirer T. S. Eliot in advance. He is not hollow; he is not stuffed. He demonstrates that a poem of suffering is one that correctly predicts the poet’s downfall, not one that fails to predict the poet’s salvation.