The Reading of “Correspondances” by Charles Baudelaire
The poem “Correspondances” is one of the best-known poems by Charles Baudelaire and
was included in his collection Flowers of Evil (Les fleurs du mal), published in 1857, the same
year Flaubert’s Madame Bovary appeared.
Baudelaire creates an immediate dissonant tension in the title of his collection, Flowers of
Evil, since he associates flowers with evil. An initial look at the poem reveals that it is still
written in the traditional form of a sonnet, which does not necessarily indicate any major poetic
changes. However, a close reading of the four stanzas challenges the associative thinking ability
of the reader. Even though the specific meaning of each word in itself does not present any
particular difficulty for the reader, each word gains presence only in connection with the
following words. All the words in the first line are easily accessible: nature, temple, living,
pillars. However, the reader has to follow the sequences of comparisons, of correspondences that
Baudelaire has implanted in the first line: the poetic invention starts with the comparison of
nature to a temple. Once that comparison has been made, the reader can visualize that the temple
has pillars. Yet, the pillars are “vivants” living pillars. Living refers back to nature, but endows
the pillars with a novel characteristic, somewhat outside of the normal perception of pillars. The
pillars relate to the temple, the “living” changes the nature of the pillars and at the same time the
“living” relates back to “nature,” which has undergone a change of perception, since different
characteristics have been attributed to “nature.” Interestingly, in the next line it is not nature that
speaks, but rather the “pillars.” However, the pillars do not convey a clear message, since
confused words come from them, not all the time, only sometimes (parfois). The first two lines
have established a series of associations, correspondences that reconnect the poetic situation
back to the title of the poem.
Once the poet has created these correspondences, the poetic thinking has to stay on the
same level of “alogical” continuation. Grammatically speaking, the pillars begin to release
confused words (confuses paroles). The uncertainty is further elevated by the adjective
“confused.” A sense of flowing and uncertainty emanates from the first two lines. That
atmosphere is further elaborated in the next two lines: L’homme y passé à travers des forets de
symboles/qui l’observent avec des regards familiers.” (Man walks through a forests of symbols
that look at him with familiar eyes). In the third line, a person enters into the scenery. “Man”
(homme) walks through a forest of symbols that take on the human activity of looking at him
with familiar eyes. Yet, the ambiguity of the third line is further underlined by the little word “y”
(there), which can refer to nature, the temple, or even the pillars. Somehow, the reader has to
enter into the world of “confused words” and “forests of symbols,” imaginative situations
without boundaries.
The entire poem creates a state of vagueness and expansion, which is ultimately anchored
in the word “vaste.” What greater immensity can be imagined by the reader than the “vastness of
night and clarity,” as articulated in the third line of the second stanza. Throughout the poem,
Baudelaire has chosen to create an atmosphere of expanding the imaginative possibilities of the
reader’s mind. The noun “echoes” in the first line of the second stanza clearly continues the
poetic thinking of widening the imaginative space. Echoes don’t project clearly defined
boundaries; the internal movement of the words suggests “expansion” in space and at the same
time the disappearance of the sounds, which actually blend into each other, while at the same
time fading into silence. The activity of poetic expansion is inherent in nouns like night, clarity,
perfumes, colors, and sounds. And it is no surprise that the word “comme” (like) is prominently
displayed throughout the poem (comme de longs échos, vaste comme la nuit, comme les
hautbois, comme les prairies, comme l’ambre), which reinforces the continuous relationship with
the title of the poem, “Correspondences.”
The last line of the second stanza brings the culmination of the correspondences. “The
perfumes, the colors, and the sounds respond to each other.” Not only does Baudelaire introduce
the interaction of different media, but he also has chosen three words that by their very nature
cannot be placed into clearly defined boundaries. The somewhat ethereal atmosphere of the
poem explodes in that stanza.
The next two stanzas of the poem continue the notion of expansion and immensity. The
ethereal nature of perfumes is brought into contact with the oboes that have the expansion of
infinite things like the amber, the musk, the benzoin, and the incense—unusual substances, yet
musical in their nature, and then “incense” that relates back to the delicate fading nature of
perfumes-- present and simultaneously disappearing like the echoes and the sounds. Baudelaire
even uses the word “l’expansion” (“expansion”) in the first line of the fourth stanza. Yet, he is
not satisfied with just the word “expansion,” which he enlarges through “choses infinies,” which
are further intensified by the strange combination of “l’ambre, le musc, le benjoin, et l’encens.”
And finally, no human being is singing the “ecstasies of the mind,” but rather “the myrrh, the
musk, and the amber, which are indirectly also connected to the “choses infinies.”
The poem could be considered an orchestration of interactions and comparisons, which
connect all the situations in the poem back to the title “Correspondences.” A further investigation
of the poem would include a detailed analysis of the sounds that Baudelaire has used in the
composition of the words to uncover whether a clear correspondence could be established
between the sound quality of the nouns.
Whatever the attraction of the poem “Correspondences” might be and still is can be
underlined by the numerous translations into English and other languages it has received, and
there seems to be no end to seeing new translations every year.
It can be said that the greatest variations in the translations of a poem into other
languages happens in the moments of greatest ambiguity. The multiple translations attached to
these comments seem to support that assumption. Even the word “pillars” in the first line: Three
different solutions can be identified: pillars, colonnades, and the omission of the word “pillars”
in Arthur Symons rendering. The expression “Confuses paroles” does not have an immediate
equivalent in English. The variations move between “mystic speech,” “perplexing messages,”
“words emerge confused,” “words of abstruse sense,” “mystic languages,” and “confused
words.” Other ambiguous expressions confirm the idea that the greatest variety of translation
differences can be identified in such passages as “forests of symbols,” (forets de symboles),
“profonde unité,” (profound unity), “vaste comme la clarté,” (wide like clarity), (vast as night).
No single translation can fully transport the meanings into another language, as verified by the
different solutions that the various translators have created. Yet, as no interpretation can ever do
justice to the intricate, complex, and delicate interactions that Baudelaire has created in the
poem, translators will continue to unravel the mystery of that poem through new translations.