A Voyage to Cythera by Charles Baudelaire
"A Voyage to Cythera" is a poem by Charles Baudelaire that explores themes of departure, loss, and the evolution of desire. The work is framed within the context of a journey to the island of Cythera, historically associated with the goddess of love, Venus. Baudelaire's imagery begins with a joyful depiction of a sea voyage, symbolizing the poet's initial sense of freedom and hope. However, this joy is juxtaposed with a sense of melancholy, as the island that once represented beauty and love is now marred by decay and death. The poem reflects Baudelaire's recognition of his own spiritual decline, using the grotesque image of a gibbet as a powerful symbol of his internal struggles and disillusionment. The narrative illustrates a contrast between the idealized past and a stark present, culminating in an appeal for divine strength to confront his own despair. Through this journey, Baudelaire captures the complexity of human emotions and the bittersweet nature of nostalgia, making "A Voyage to Cythera" a poignant reflection on love, loss, and the passage of time.
A Voyage to Cythera by Charles Baudelaire
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of World Literature, Revised Edition
First published: “Un Voyage à Cythère,” 1861 (collected in The Flowers of Evil, 2006)
Type of work: Poem
The Work
“A Voyage to Cythera” shows the full evolution of the motif of departure in Baudelaire’s work. In earlier poems, the poet shared the innocence exemplified by the child at the opening of “The Trip.” Thus, in “By Association” he saw no reason not to abandon himself to the imagined departure inspired by the woman’s perfume. “The Swan” reflects his recognition of separation from the ideal, but in a context of sadness rather than despair. The images of death in “A Voyage to Cythera” finally document the extent of the poet’s fall.
Baudelaire borrowed the circumstances of this poem from a story that Gérard de Nerval had told of his own visit to Greece in his Voyage en Orient (1851; Journey to the Orient, 1972). The poem opens with the familiar scene of a happy sea voyage: “My heart, like a bird, fluttered joyfully/ And soared freely around the rigging.” The joyful bird representing the poet’s heart recalls the use of the same image in “Elévation” (“Elevation”), a poem at the beginning of Flowers of Evil, and serves to show from what heights the poet has fallen. Immediately, the imagery of this joyous scene suggests the fall: “The ship rocked under a cloudless sky/ Like an angel drunk on radiant sunlight.” The negative implication appears, not in the literal meanings of the words, but in special nuances that Baudelaire has attached to them. The rolling ship echoes the rocking action by which “Boredom” rocked humanity’s will, and the drunken angel recalls the angel of “Benediction” who observed the child’s drunkenness.
When the island of Cythera, once sacred to Venus, becomes visible to the travelers, it is devoid of its former charms, “proud ghost of the antique Venus.” Baudelaire recalls the island’s past, “Where the sighs of adoring hearts/ Roll like incense on a rose garden,” and the perfume recalls Baudelaire’s own seduction. Like Baudelaire, the island has changed. On its banks now stands a gibbet, upon which hangs the body of a man already being devoured by beasts of prey. Faced with this grotesque image, Baudelaire recognizes in it the emblem of his own condition: “On your island, oh Venus! I found standing/ Only a symbolic gibbet where hung my own image.” His spiritual death was linked to women, even as this man’s death was to the island that represented love. In his fallen state, the poet can only reach out to God: “Oh Lord! give me the strength and courage/ To contemplate my heart and body without distaste.” The strength for which he prays may indeed provide the courage with which he will face death in his ultimate departure in “The Trip.”
Bibliography
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