Analysis of To the Reader

Charles Baudelaire 1821 (Paris) – 1867 (Paris)



Folly, depravity, greed, mortal sin
Invade our souls and rack our flesh; we feed
Our gentle guilt, gracious regrets, that breed
Like vermin glutting on foul beggars' skin.

Our sins are stubborn; our repentance, faint.
We take a handsome price for our confession,
Happy once more to wallow in transgression,
Thinking vile tears will cleanse us of all taint.

On evil's cushion poised, His Majesty,
Satan Thrice-Great, lulls our charmed soul, until
He turns to vapor what was once our will:
Rich ore, transmuted by his alchemy.

He holds the strings that move us, limb by limb!
We yield, enthralled, to things repugnant, base;
Each day, towards Hell, with slow, unhurried pace,
We sink, uncowed, through shadows, stinking, grim.

Like some lewd rake with his old worn-out whore,
Nibbling her suffering teats, we seize our sly
delight, that, like an orange—withered, dry—
We squeeze and press for juice that is no more.

Our brains teem with a race of Fiends, who frolic
thick as a million gut-worms; with each breath,
Our lungs drink deep, suck down a stream of Death—
Dim-lit—to low-moaned whimpers melancholic.

If poison, fire, blade, rape do not succeed
In sewing on that dull embroidery
Of our pathetic lives their artistry,
It's that our soul, alas, shrinks from the deed.

And yet, among the beasts and creatures all—
Panther, snake, scorpion, jackal, ape, hound, hawk—
Monsters that crawl, and shriek, and grunt, and squawk,
In our vice-filled menagerie's caterwaul,

One worse is there, fit to heap scorn upon—
More ugly, rank! Though noiseless, calm and still,
yet would he turn the earth to scraps and swill,
swallow it whole in one great, gaping yawn:

Ennui! That monster frail!—With eye wherein
A chance tear gleams, he dreams of gibbets, while
Smoking his hookah, with a dainty smile. . .
—You know him, reader,—hypocrite,—my twin!


Scheme ABBA CDDC EFFE GHHG IJJI KLLK BEEB XMMX XFFX ANNA
Poetic Form Quatrain  (80%)
Tetractys  (20%)
Metre 1001001101 011010110111 10101100111 110111101 101110100101 110101110010 10111100010 1011111111 111011100 10111101101 11110111101 11111100 1101111111 1101110101 11011110101 11111101 1111111111 1000100111101 0111110101 1101111111 101110111110 1101011111 10111110111 111111010 11010111101 0101110100 11001011100 11101011101 0101010101 10110010111 1011010101 010111100 1111111101 110111101 1111011101 1011011101 01011011101 011111111 101110101 111101011
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 1,827
Words 309
Sentences 17
Stanzas 10
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 40
Letters per line (avg) 36
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 143
Words per stanza (avg) 31
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 03, 2023

1:33 min read
174

Charles Baudelaire

Charles Pierre Baudelaire was a French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. more…

All Charles Baudelaire poems | Charles Baudelaire Books

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