T. S. Eliot and the Impact of Baudelaire Author(s): R. Galand Source: Yale French Studies, No.

6, France and World Literature (1950), pp. 27-34 Published by: Yale University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2929192 . Accessed: 03/02/2011 15:22
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=yale. . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Yale University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Yale French Studies.

http://www.jstor.org

R. GALAND

T. S. Eliot and the Impact of Baudelaire

Problems literary of of influence oftena matter bitterdispute.It are for will not be denied, however, theyare of theutmost that importance such authors T. S. Eliot.Consciously willingly, has nourished as and he his inspiration with the spiritual richesof ancientand moderntimes, of countries and near. With an intellectual far honesty rarelyfound in litterateurs, has acknowleged literary he his debtsto the Bible,Dante, theElizabethans, Gautier, Laforgue manyothers. and InnumeraCorbiere, of ble articleshave been writtenon the subject,but the influence Baudelaire seemsto have been somewhat neglected. And yet,Eliot himself has hinted, openlysaid, thathe belongsto Baudelaire's or literary In thatthe current poetry of whichsprang progeny. 1930, he asserted affected English all fromBaudelaire had, in the previoustwenty years, poetrythat mattered: withoutaccusinghim of inordinate pride,one maywell assumethathe also had his own writings mind.' Without in Baudelaire's influence, repeated a 1946 lecture he in broadcast Gerto many, own poetry his would hardly conceivable. be sure,if one be To wantedonlyto findthe sources, Baudelaire, some of Eliot's lines, in of But the problem mightwell be soon dismissed. morethan in the borcan in of rowing a fewlines,a poet'sinfluence be detected thetreatment of identical themes and in the similarity poeticalmethods. of Furthermore,his personality may well exertas powerful influence his an as writings. Eliot borrows Actually, veryfewlinesfrom Baudelaire, whenhe and does, he usuallyshapes themto fithis own purpose.In his rich and threetimesto strange mosaic,The Waste Land, the readeris referred and thirdsections the poem, Eliot Les Fleursdu Mal. In the first of an describes "UnrealCity,under the brownfog of a winterdawn." andits Crowdsof people flowthrough streets, strange encounters take of is place: the situation an adaptation Baudelaire's poem, "Les Sept is The atmosphere the same,and the adventure the proof Vieillards." Eliot quotes the At tagonist analogous. the end of the openingsection, lecteur!-mon semblable-mon frere!"At the line: "You! hypocrite "Au wantedto make his Baudelaire end of his avertissement Lecteur," Eliot emphasizes this point by aware of theirdeep similarity. reader in a few lines,the crowdsof Paris or London,the bringing together,
1

Cliteon, Jan. 1930, p. 359.

27

Yale FrenchStudies
sighingsouls in Limbo,the ancientwarriors Mylae,the reader, at and even himself. theseinstances, In Baudelaire's words perform, their in new context, function a largely similar theirformer to one. Such is not always the case. When Baudelairewrites,in "Recueillement": Tu reclamais Soir,ii descend;le voici: le Une atmosphere obscureenveloppela viyle, Aux unsportant paix,aux autres souci. la le and Eliot: . . .evening quickens faintly the street, in the Wakening appetites life in some of And to othersbringing the Boston EveningTranscript, one is led to believe, withReneTaupin,thatthisis mereparody.2 Actually the two poems operateat a different level of intensity. Baudelaire's couldnotbe appeased reading evening suffering by the newspaper. Eliot's lineswouldrather recalltheAh! que hi Vie est quotidienne Laforgue. of A better exampleof Eliot'stendency lighten mood is to be found to the in "The Hippopotamus." pattern thispoem is thatof Baudelaire's The of "Abel et Cain": one of continuous contrast, with a suddenreversal in the concludingsection.The Hippopotamus(common mankind,apparently) mustsuffer every in way,just like the race of Cain. The True on Church, the contrary, the race of Abel, is quite prosperous. like But in due timethe tablesare turned. The sons of Cain will climbthe sky, therace of Abel rotin theground. The Hippopotamus will triumph in Heaven, "while the True Churchremains below / Wrapt in the old miasmal mist." The essential structure the two poemsas well as their of are Even the iambictetrameter "The Hippobasic themes identical. of is potamus" the closestEnglishequivalent the octosyllabic of metreof But there in Baudelaire seriousness purposeand a "Abel et CaYn." is of an accentof truerebellion, whileEliot'spoem is an amusing not satire, its a devoidof sting, achieving effect but entirely mostly through quaint humor. would be a parallelbetween Another illusionof the same tendency and of stanzasof his "Whispers Immortality" "Les Phares."In the first poem, Baudelairenamesa famousartistand gives a shortaccountof method communicate to what Eliot usesa similar his mosttypical works. But Baudeor to be Webster's Donne's essential he believes message. from last three and the its laire'spoemreceives unity itsmeaning stanzas, and conclusion the preceding of which are the naturaldevelopment
2

de franjcais la poesie am&ricaine 1910 d 1920, sar L'Influence symbolisme da p. 223.

28

R. GALAND
ones.Eliot,on thecontrary, proceeds witha violent changeof tonewhich emphasizes contrast thought: is characteristic after has the of it that, he faceddeathin all its grimreality, shouldfeel the need forirony, he as if unable,without to bear the sight. it, More comparisons thistypecould be made,but would not probof ablyappearequallyconclusive. factthatEliot'sthemes The and symbols are, to a certainextent, those of Baudelaire, seems more significant. Although the authorof Les Fleuts du Mal could hardlybe called a paysagiste, certainlandscapes keep appearingin his poems. They are "Un desert rocailleux trouble descrisaigres"( "Un Voyage Cythere"), 'a par "des terrains sans verdure" cendreux, calcines, ("La Beatrice"),"un pays ni ni plus nu que la terrepolaire;/-Ni betes,ni ruisseaux, verdure, bois!" ('"De Profundis Clamavi"). This landscapehas not the purity a of a desert;it is actually dead land: wheretherewas life,thereremain only "dirty where"rareand hills coveredwith unknown debris," in unhappy seedsvainly to germinate an arid soil." ("La Fanfarlo"). try with wateror life,littered Is thisnotEliot'sWasteLand,without shade, And in "Le Cygne," Baudelaire "rocks, moss,stonecrops, iron,merds"? a on describes Swahwho,by thebankof a drystream, thedusty ground, of waitsvainlyforrain,like the inhabitants the Waste Land: theyare all exiles, deprived thetrue of life. It is also no mere coincidence should be nearly that vegetation from Baudelaire's Eliot'spoems.Littledoes Baudelaire and entirely absent that to It careaboutthen legumes sanctifies. is quite consciously he turns the city,to "the littered streets, squinting the slums,the grime and smoke and theviscidhuman within streets . ." This,whichEliot life the . said of Baudelairein his introduction the poems of Harold Monro, to to he appliesstillbetter manyof his own poems.Like Baudelaire, has back streets, withprostitutes, gone through narrow heardof strange met the contrast murders, experienced excruciating betweensordid reality and ideal aspirations, transmuted thisinto poetry. and all But Eliot did not onlyderivefrom Baudelaire certain lines,symbols or themes. His conception poetry also closely of is modeledon thatof Baudelaire. both of them, formostartists, primary For as the question is to know"whether workof artshouldhave no otherend thanart, the art whether shouldexpress adoration onlyforitself, whether end, or an nobler less noble,inferior superior, be imposed or or may upon it" (Art romantique). Baudelaire's answer, he expresses in his Notesnouvelles as it ser Edgar Poe, is thatpoetry has no otherend than itself. Eliot will say the same thing, morepedanticterms:"I have assumedas axioin maticthata creation, workof art,is autotelic." a (Selected Essays, 19). p. A distinction mustbe made howeverbetween"autotelic art" and

29

Yale FrenchStudies
"artforart'ssake."No one indeedmakesa sharper indictment Part of pour PartthanBaudelaire his articles "PierreDupont" and "The in on Pagan School": he denounces dilettantism, separation its its fromlife, itsempty formalism. condemns withequal severity, Eliot it especially when its partisans come to consider literature the fineartsas a substitute and for everything else.3Both agree thatthe true aim of art is to create not to advocatemoral,religious, beauty, social or politicalideas: this does notmeanthatthepoet mustexcludethem, thathe shouldsubbut ordinatethem to his artistic purpose. To thispurpose, poet'spersonality the itself mustyield.For Baudelaire,naked passionsor emotions have no place in poetry:theylead to sentimentalizing make for magniloquence. has nothing and He but pity and contempt poets whose instinct theironly guide, for for is elegiasts who surrender blindly the dictates theirinspiration, to of and whomhe calls canailles. The truepoet accomplishes what he has conset sciously outto do. Eliot'sfamous theory theobjective of correlative has the same goal: to arousea particular emotionin the reader, by the not expression theemotion' felt thepoet,butbya carefully of as by elaborated poeticalformula. An equal similarity existsbetweenEliot's and Baudelaire's conceptionsof the realmof poetry. According Proust, certain to a realismof is modernity one of Baudelaire's mostimportant to contributions poetry. He recognizes elementof eternal the beautywhichexistseven in the most transitory life aspectsof contemporary (Cu~riosites esthetiques). Beds withcurtains, shelveswith flowers, lamps whichgo out and coal fireshave a place in Baudelaire'smost perfectpoems: Eliot praises him forthisability make the trivial to great(SelectedEssays, 273). p. Baudelaire does notstop there:he makesuse of thevulgar, even the or Thereis no need todayto refute heresy repulsive. the thatonlyobjects poeticalin se may appearin a poem. Fallingin love, readingSpinoza, the noise of a typewriter, hearing the most familiar smelling cooking, of activities our life have a latentpoeticalpowerwhichit is the businessof suchpoetsas Eliot to reveal.In the poeticalprocess, there an is of and the lower the components, actual transmutation elements, the the greater success: "Tu m'as donne ta boue, et j'en ai fait de l'or," Baudelaire saysto Paris.By joiningviolently and heterogeneous elements themtogether, stateof poeticalequilibrium createdwhich a is fusing alwaysseems on the verge of destruction: althoughthe originalelewithinthe compound high mentsnow forma whole,theresubsists a tension. fromit is forBaudelaire, The shockwhichthe readerreceives element beauty. of as well as forEliot,an essential
3 "Experiment Criticism," in Tradition Experiment Present-Day and in Literature,

(Oxford Press,1929). University

30

R. GALAND
has or The use of thevulgar therepulsive theaddedeffect keeping of the readeralive to the reality behindthe word. This is an aspectof and Eliot's concern with the sensory Baudelaire's of perception reality. Even thoughts emotionsmust receive a sensuousexpression:the or for symbolsof "L'Irremediable," example,are the concreteformof Eliot has been struckby this abilityof Baudelaire'sinner torment. ideas and feelingsinto sensations, and his Baudelaire'sto transmute has the correlative precisely sameaim. of theory theobjective is Baudelaire's technique oftenmotivated thisdesireto act upon by of hencethe concreteness his comparisons: the reader's sensibility: La nuit s'9paississait ainsi qu'une cloison ("Le Balcon") Toi qui, commeun coup de couteau, Dans mon coeurplaintif entree es ("Le Vampire) whichhave their in of parallels Eliot'scomparison the fog to an animal or (Prmfrock), in the lines: Midnightshakes the memory a As a madman shakes dead geranium. ("Rhapsody a windynight") on Hence also Baudelaire'sconcernwith languageconsidered a kind as of evocatory his witchcraft, study dictionaries rhymes as to be of and so of able to find verbalequivalent all the ideas,sensations emotions the or whichmay appearin the movement life (Art Romantique).These of preoccupations again, shared by Eliot (The New Listener, are, Nov. 28, 1940). So far, we have been concernedwith Baudelaire'sinfluence on Eliotfrom purely a literary pointof view.It mayhave been noticed that of most T. S. Eliot'sworks mentioned thepreceding in pages are anterior to 1927, the date of his conversion Anglo-Catholicism, at least to or to 1930, when he publishedhis most important essay on Baudelaire. After period, seemsthatEliot turns this it from artist, Baudelaire, the in to theman,although thereis, of course, clear-cut no division. It is fairly apparent thatBaudelaire's and Eliot'spreoccupations are of the same nature. Baudelaire's to struggle turntowards God, his belief in the necessity religion, need of prayer, conviction of his his that man can purify himself suffering, thisis present Eliot. Their all by in of conceptions Satan,of Evil,of the nature man are stillmorealike. of With equal seriousness, denouncethe Evil Spirit'sinfluence they which is pervading literature, civilization, wholeway of life.Evil, our our our as a consequence the OriginalSin, is also part of our nature:for of

31

Yale FrenchStudies
their refusal recognize Baudelaire to it, censures GeorgeSand and Victor of Hugo, while Eliot condemnsthe humanitarians every type from Rousseauto NormanFoerster. The dominant vice of modern timesis perhaps, Baudelaire's in eyes, the concern with material ends. In his Journaux intimes, paintsa he gloomy picture a society whichspiritual of in valueshave no place: he goes so far as to brandbusinessas satanical.In spite of his greater attitude Eliot blamesour acquisitive towards moderation, moneyand the immorality competition of whichare,in his opinion, main causesof the modernwars (The Idea of a Christian Society, 102-3). Even love pp. in has been replaced, our Waste Land, by animalcopulation sterile or is lust: reproduction considered "a viceof love,theillness a spider." as of as ("La Fanfarlo"). Indifference, Baudelairecalls it in "Chacun sa man to a stateof death thatis, spiritual is Chimere," torpor, reducing in lifesuchas Eliotdescribes The WasteLand or "The Hollow Men": in its not onlydoes it cause our spiritual to disappear, it prevents life but to and Eliot say,thanto acceptthis possibility. Better suffer, Baudelaire fate. to and too characteristic be enThese analogiesare too numerous Baudeto tirely accidental: Eliot has really adopted, a verygreatextent, of laire'sconception life,of whichhe wrote: . . . the more we study it, the more coherenceappears,the we a moresane and severe clear-sighted find viewof lifewhich and for is, I believe, muchmoremodern us thanare mostphilosophies of betweenBaudelaire'stime and our own. (IntimateJournals translated Christopher by Baudelaire, by Isherwood, introduction T. S. Eliot,p. 26) for who studies author an with Thereis always danger, thecritic the whomhe has affinities, see onlyone side of thisauthor. narrower to A Eliot'scriticism Baudelaire viewmaybe thepriceof a deeperinsight. of is not entirely on Not thathe shouldbe blamedfor faultless thiscount. it in any way: Baudelaire himself would come to his rescue, claiming that"criticism mustbe partial, passionate, done froman exclusive i.e., And at least his Baudelaireis point of view" (Cmriosites esthetiques). or not the Satan d'hotelgarrni Brunetiere the hermit the brothel of of classical of of Symons. can admireBaudelaire's He perfection formand a of without the mastery his technique beingblindto his defects: stock whichhas not worn of imagery(negresses, prostitutes, serpents, etc.) to verywell and a tendency be rhetorical (Selected Essays,pp. 253, 340-1). But this is not the Baudelaire with whom he is mostly concerned. Eliot wrotein 1930, of ". . . any adequate criticism Baudelaire,"

32

R. GALAND
"mustinevitably lead the criticoutsideof literary criticism. it will For not do to label Baudelaire;he is not merely, in my opinion even or primarily, argtist; . . I shouldplace him with men who are imthe . portant first becausetheyare humanprototypes new experience, of and onlysecondbecausetheyare poets."4 is the man rather It thanthe poet whomEliot has seen fitto analyzeand to interpret. Baudelaire The he in describes first, his article in Baudelaire our time,is not the decadent It poet in whom the 'nineties worshipped what Brunetiere burnt.5 is the Baudelaire Du Bos, of StanislasFumet, FransoisPorche, of of and whomBarbeyd'Aurevilly been the first see. Eliot contends that had to Baudelaireis essentially Christian, statement a a whichhe repeats, but also qualifies his secondessay thepoet: Baudelaire, his satanism in on by and his blasphemy, attempted "to get into Christianity through the back door" (SelectedEssays,p. 337). Religion is not for him, Eliot asserts, meresourceof sensations aesthetic a or pleasures. morbidity His of temperament cannotbe ignored, but Eliot suggests that Baudelaire assumedthis morbidity: unable to escape suffering to transcend or it, he attracted to himself. rejection the actualworldled him to it His of searchforthe supernatural, Enferou ciel,qu'importe?-while ennzi his was a form acedia,thespiritual of sickness whichhe fellvictim. to As has been seen, Eliot is also deeply impressed Baudelaire's by and of beliefin OriginalSin. He praisesthe sincerity the lucidity this trueexplorer the humansoul who is able to see man naked,weak, of An of impureand corrupt. important consequence Baudelaire's belief in the wretchedness man is his aphorism: politics, truesaint of "In the is theone who scourges killsthepeopleforthegood of thepeople" and of (Fusees). This is the expression a view of life which, Eliot,has for and heroism. are notleftin doubtaboutit, We grandeur whichexhibits forhe quotesa textof T. E. Hulme as one whichBaudelaire wouldhave approved:"As man is essentially he can onlyaccomplish bad, anything and political."(SelectedEssays, 345). of value by discipline-ethical p. A conception man whichleads to such extremities have,in the of may and but eyesof some,grandeur heroism, it will neverdo forthosewho salvation withthe individual. lies for Eliot believethattheresponsibility for himself does not deny this,but his admiration Baudelaire's ideas in a of is easyto understand: finds them diagnosis thetroubles our he of The type of society age and the germ of some of his own theories. in whichEliot advocates The Idea of a Christian Societycalls for the standards fromwhich it would not be of generalacceptance definite of easy to deviateunderthe purelysocial pressure a tightly integrated
4 Criterion, Jan. 1930, p. 358.
5

in In For Lancelot Andrews (1928). First published The Dial (May 1927).

33

Yale FrenchStudies
community. is not therefore He innocent the chargehe himentirely of self raised againsthumanitarianism, which he definesas "a genuine of oppression human beings in what is conceivedby other human and Modern, 119). beingsto be theirown good." (EssaysAncient p. But a suspicion whomEliotsees keepscoming back: is theBaudelaire a he the real one? Can he be called "essentially Christian," who, after all, does not seemto believein the immortality the soul and ignores of Christ, except to mock him?6From Eliot's writings, one derivesthe of to impression a man condemned suffering, withinhimself carrying thathis (possible) damnathesenseof his own doom,grimly conscious tiongave hima superiority the directeurs over conservateurs Parisian of This interpretation have dramatic reviews. may appeal,but is it not subject to sharplimitations? the surprising For thingabout Baudelaireis constant of his nearly of certainty redeeming himself, doinggreatthings, his and aboveall of making mother One might happy. objectthathe did to the not reallybelieveit, thathe was only trying convincehimself: that of number his actions factremains a very from sincere a great sprang He beliefin his rajeunissement. was constantly makingplans to write a to to plays, direct theatre, sell his books and articles, live withhis to and earn a greatdeal of money. mother Baudelairewas Furthermore, and could look upon themas a assuredthathis poems would survive, proofof his own genius. In all fairness, mustbe remembered it however thatEliot'scriticism of Baudelaire limited itspurpose:it was written theform reis in in of to views or as an introduction a translation Baudelaire's of Journaux This explainssome of its gaps: why,for instance, intimes. Eliot fails of Baudelaire's volumes criticism their to mention and tremendous value. attracted Baudelaire to the man and we learn He has been immensely perhapsas much about Eliot himselfas about Baudelairefrom his of criticism the Frenchpoet. There may well be therea personalelementintowhichit wouldperhapsappearimproper look too closely. to Be thisas it may,thepointsof contact between theirworksas well of as their conceptions artor of life are unusually numerous reveal and has howdeeply influence Baudelaire penetrated theliterature the of into of America and England.
6

of Letter May 8, 1861; "Le R&ved'un Curieux";the poems groupedunder thetitle"R6volte."

a R. GALAND, himself Breton, preparing stady of Renan et le is a mondeceltique. is an Instructor Yale University. at He

34