Baudelaire's Poem 'The Evil Monk' 'Le Mauvais Moine'?

Question

I have the english translation but what exactly does it mean? Like what is the poem trying to say?

Please help me lol

Answer 1

Le mauvais moine

Les cloîtres anciens sur leurs grandes murailles

Etalaient en tableaux la sainte Vérité,

Dont l'effet, réchauffant les pieuses entrailles,

Tempérait la froideur de leur austérité.

En ces temps où du Christ florissaient les semailles,

Plus d'un illustre moine, aujourd'h*i peu cité,

Prenant pour atelier le champ des funérailles,

Glorifiait la Mort avec simplicité.

- Mon âme est un tombeau que, mauvais cénobite,

Depuis l'éternité je parcours et j'habite ;

Rien n'embellit les murs de ce cloître odieux.

Ô moine fainéant ! quand saurai-je donc faire

Du spectacle vivant de ma triste misère

Le travail de mes mains et l'amour de mes yeux ?

"Le mauvais moine" est en fait une des images utilisées par Baudelaire pour décrire son rapport à la poésie. Le mauvais moine est donc une métaphore du poète en mal d'inspiration alors qu'il s'est voué à la poésie : tout comme un moine, censé se consacrer au culte religieux, peut parfois ne plus ressentir la foi et ne plus arriver à prier...

on y trouve donc :

- les difficultés et la douleur du "mauvais moine"

-la métaphore filée du moine pour représenter le poète

-l'image de la poésie et son rapport avec le Spleen

I do hope that this will help you

*hypocorism:  did you see this ??

http://fr.answers.yahoo.com/question/ind...

mdr!!

Answer 2

This is a delicate poem because Baudelaire makes quite a few comparisons that are meant to resonate, without being very explicit.  Le Mauvais Moine is from Les Fleurs du Mal, one of the striking sequences of French poetry; it is a collection of poems with many experiments in the sonnet form.  Traditionally sonnets, of course, have a 4-4-4-2 line or a 8-6 line arrangement, summing to 14 lines; this poem uses what appears to be a mixture of Shakespearean and Petrarchan structure, and it is important to see how the stanzas work alone, and then how they work together.  

Baudelaire's rhyme scheme is ABAB/ABAB//CCD/EED; the poem apparently has an octave and a sestet, but each of these large structures is itself an image and counter-image, and the unusual rhyme scheme of the sestet makes the division very obvious.  (A more traditional sestet, which, unlike Baudelaire's, conveys a sense of unity, is CDCDCD.)  It is also worth noting that this poem has four sentences; each quatrain in the octave and each tercet in the sestet is exactly one sentence.

The sequence of images over the four parts is this:

Monastery > Christ/Monk > Poet's Soul > Fainéant Monk

The poet's tone is different in the octave than the sestet.  In the octave he moves from examining an object (Q1) to contemplating history and telling a strange story (Q2); the sestet is far more strident: the poet contemplates his soul in light of the images from the octave, and then addresses the monk directly.  The exclamation point, in fact, suggests the poet is more-or-less shouting at the monk.

This increase of volume suggests we might start at the end: in the second tercet, the monk is un `moine fainéant,' while in the second quatrain he was in fact `illustre,' if paradoxically nowadays `peu cité.'  `Fainéant' is an intense value judgement the poet imposes on the monk; when the poet was merely telling a story, there was an elegance to his action when he `glorifiait la Mort avec simplicité.'   This change in attitude is the result of considering his own soul in the first tercet.

The first tercet, then, reflects the eternity of resurrection, from the octave, in the poet's living soul-- `mon âme est un tombeau que.../depuis l'éternité je parcours et j'habite;' the `tombeau' of the poet's own soul is a perversion of the octave's `champs funérailles.'  It is only in this light that the poet sees (in fact, addresses; but I don't think he is quite shouting yet) the monk as `mauvais cénobite.'  While `ce cloître odieux' is a reflection of `les cloîtres anciens,' within is own soul he earnestly desires to have the `tableaux' which in the real monastery `etalaient... la sainte Vérité,' and thus demands in the second tercet, `O... quand saurai-je donc faire/du spectacle vivant,' because for him, `rien n'embellit les murs' of his soul.  

Finally, it's worth mentioning that `Christ florissaient les semailles' is central to the poem, but does not translate well into English at all.  It is a little bit helpful to know that the English word `seminary' comes from a Latin word, seminarium, which is like a field for sowing seeds; that is what `les semailles' means, and it is grammatically always plural (and feminine).  Metaphorically, these are the seeds of the Gospel which Christ caused to flower.  The idea of this type of `field' challenges the `champs funérailles,' so in a sense the poet in the sestet is asking why his `tombeau' does not flower also, but that, unlike the `fainéant moine,' must cultivate it with `le travail de mes mains.'  This is why he apparently resents the monk.

If you are familiar with the American/English poet T.S. Eliot, he claimed in his famous poem, The Waste Land, to have borrowed quite a bit from Baudelaire.  He expresses a very similar idea about Christ in it:

That corpse you planted last year in your garden,

Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?

Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?

Also, Herculine's commentary above is excellent-- this is just a complementary perspective.  I guess it is interesting, but wise, that the poet decided to call his poem, `Le mauvais moine,' which after all is just a rhetorical device, rather than the real subject of the poem-- `Mon âme.'

*Herculine- I did not.  At least I am in good company.

Answer 3

i have nooo ideaa.

answer mine?

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