Letter to the Editors: That Doggone Baudelaire

Abstract

In the special Baudelaire ‘Appreciations’ section of the summer 2021 issue of Volupté I recounted my experience teaching ‘Une Charogne’, first published in 1857. The fact that the poem escaped the attention of the censors who banned six poems from the first edition of Les Fleurs du mal perhaps argues in favour of certain obscurities (the censors could not ban things they could not understand), such as the one that I focused on in my appreciation, namely, the animal identity of the carrion creature whose lively decay Baudelaire describes. I am convinced that ‘une charogne’ must be ‘un chien’ or another ‘chienne’ (a female dog feeds on the carcass), but strictly speaking, I cannot offer hard evidence in support of the interpretation. As near as I can figure, only five dogs wander through Les Fleurs du mal.