Subject Areas |
Foreign Language
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French |
Literature and Language Arts
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Poetry |
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World |
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Time Required |
| Lesson 1: One Forty-minute class period
Lesson 2: One Forty-minute class period
Lesson 3: One Forty-minute class period |
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Skills |
| Reading
recognizing word constructs
recognizing poetic forms,
analyzing literature
critical reading and analysis, close reading
drawing inferences
comparing texts and themes
internet research
translation. |
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Additional Data |
| Date Created: 06/17/02
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Additional Student/Teacher Resources |
| Graphic Organizer for Analysis (interactive assessment tool) |
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Author(s) |
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Etheljean Deal
Washington, DC
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Date Posted |
| 6/17/2002 |
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Charles Baudelaire: The Poet of Sickness and Evil
IntroductionMost
students are fascinated by the works of Edgar Allan Poe and his macabre exploration
of the human mind and madness. The "goth" movement and its themes of horror and
the occult have inundated the modern teen, influencing contemporary movies, television,
and music. Both French and World Literature classes can benefit from these influences
by introducing the works of Charles Baudelaire, a 19th Century French
poet who makes Poe look like Mary Poppins in comparison. In the 21st
Century, students will thrill to discover that the WB-TV generation had a kindred
soul in the 1800s. Death, vampires, depravity, and the devastating sense that
no one understands the torture of being alone against the universe underpin the
works of the Decadent poets of France, but none more thoroughly than Charles Baudelaire
in his scandalous Les Fleurs du Mal - The Flowers of Sickness and Evil. Guiding
Questions (as appropriate to content and level):Why
do you think vampire movies and horror television shows are so popular? What authors
throughout history dealt with these themes? What connection is there between the
Romantic themes and the themes of the 21st century popular culture? Learning
Objectives for French ClassesBeginning Levels - To give
students practice reading and hearing French
- To practice working with
cognates
- To recognize a variety of poetic forms, connecting with language
arts instruction
- To become familiar with noted French poet Charles Baudelaire
- To appreciate universal themes prevalent in the 21st century
popular entertainment venues as depicted in Baudelaire's poetry
Advanced
Levels - To give students practice reading and pronouncing French
- To practice working with cognates
- To practice translation
- To
recognize a variety of poetic forms, connecting with language arts instruction
- To become familiar with noted French poet Charles Baudelaire
- To
recognize Charles Baudelaire as a Decadent poet and the leading influence of the
Symbolist movement
- To recognize Romantic themes present in poems of Les
Fleurs du Mal
- To appreciate universal themes prevalent in the 21st
century popular entertainment venues as depicted in Baudelaire's poetry
Learning
Objectives for World Literature - To expose students to a foreign language
- To practice working with cognates
- To create meaning using word-attack
skills and knowledge of etymology
- To recognize a variety of poetic forms
- To become familiar with noted French poet Charles Baudelaire
- To
recognize Charles Baudelaire as a Decadent poet and the leading influence of the
Symbolist movement
- To recognize Romantic themes present in poems of Les
Fleurs du Mal
- To appreciate universal themes prevalent in the 21st
century popular entertainment venues as depicted in Baudelaire's poetry
Preparing
to Teach this LessonFamiliarize yourself with the
details of the life of Charles Baudelaire and the time period by consulting all
the links at the bottom of the article on Baudelaire. A short summary of essential
information follows: Romanticism is a literary
movement of the 19th century that celebrated the spirit of the individual
over the "norms" of society. It developed as a reaction to Classicism and the
strict social demands of the Age of Reason, which promoted logic over emotion.
A sub-movement of Romanticism was the Symbolist
movement. Most of its leading proponents were French: Mallarmé, Verlaine,
Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Gautier, and Laforgue. Symbolism in literature was a complex movement
that deliberately extended the evocative power of words to express the feelings,
sensations and states of mind that lie beyond everyday awareness. Themes included
the inner self -- especially a morbid fascination with the gap between imagination
and reality, the realm of experience, the supernatural, and the connection --
or correspondences -- between images and the concepts they represent, including
"synaesthesia" -- the correlation between senses. Rhetorical modes of comparison, either explicit (similes) or implicit (metaphors) are the chief literary devices, and the association between inner feelings and outer phenomena became the focus of the symbols used. Many of the Symbolist artists felt
the tension of the dichotomy between their imagined lives, with lush imagery,
faraway exoticism, and idealized existence, and their humdrum real lives, with
poverty, vices, and the pressures of urban living. Some artists saw Romanticism
and Symbolism, with the focus on experience and the sanctity of the human spirit,
as a call to rebel against social conformities, including those of accepted behavior.
They rejected bourgeois values, challenged the Establishment, refused to conform and lived what was termed “la vie bohème.” These “Bohemians” were also called “Decadents” and “libertines,” because they took so many social and moral liberties and deviated from all norms. In addition, they took artistic pleasure in shocking their audiences, always
pushing the envelope, risking censure and even imprisonment for indecency for
celebrating their decadence and the decay of life in the city. Charles
Baudelaire was a Symbolist poet who was fascinated by the darker side of nature
during the Romantic era. While everyone else celebrated nature's beauty as the
revelation of God's goodness, Baudelaire, like Poe, also examined nature's less
beautiful aspects such as death, decay, and carrion. While most Romantics examined
the spiritual or divine supernatural, Baudelaire, like Poe and Irving in America
or Stoker and Shelley in Europe, was more fascinated with supernatural monsters.
Unleashing a wild and vivid imagination, he explored the extreme confines of human nature and empathized with such marginal characters as criminals, prostitutes, derelicts, outcasts, gamblers, as well as madmen, acrobats, widows, and all kinds of old, poor, sick, or dying people.
While Baudelaire still employed the standard poetic forms (such as sonnets or quatrains) and traditional rhetorical figures (such as metaphors and allegories), he radically altered them with brand new representations. His topics focused on human nature, especially life
in the city. His book of poetry called Les Fleurs du Mal, which can be
translated as "The Flowers of Evil" or "The Flowers of Sickness," was censored
for sexual explicitness and obscenity, and six poems were banned from publication.
Baudelaire was named "poète maudit" (cursed poet) and imprisoned at one
point for immorality. His rich, evocative imagery and his focus on urban themes
nevertheless paved the way for such modern poets as T.S. Eliot, Carl Sandburg,
and Allen Ginsberg. Poems for this unit can be found by following
the following pathway: Academy
of American Poets, Find
a Poet, Under Browse by Last Name, select B, then Charles Baudelaire At
the bottom of the page, select the link for "Charles
Baudelaire - an audio introduction" Select William
Sigler's translation for English texts, For French texts, at this site
select "Dedication,
Translator's Note and Links," Under the Translator Note, select the
link for poetes.com, Select "Les
Fleurs du Mal" and again "Fleurs du Mal" from the pop-up
menu At the bottom of the page, select "Index
des titres," for a complete index of all titles, by category, along with illustrative
graphics which may be too intense for classroom use, especially at lower levels
or grades. Also at this site, in French, the link for Symbolisme
themes leads to a page on "Décadences."
Select the poems "Le Vampire," "La Fontaine du Sang," "Horreur Sympathique,"
"Remords Posthume," and "Une Charogne" both in French and English (The Vampire,
Fountain of Blood, Sympathetic Horror, Posthumous Remorse, and Carrion). It is
helpful to illustrate the texts with appropriate graphics from the Internet Public
Library Teen Collection; for example, under Arts and Entertainment, you can access
and download graphics from television's "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" or "Angel,"
or from album covers of heavy metal bands, Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne, or Marilyn
Manson. Some background questions for this lesson: - Why do you think vampire movies and horror television
shows are so popular? (Possible answers: fascination with death, immortality,
predators, violence)
- What other areas of popular culture deal with these
themes of death and horror? (Possible answers: music, performers like Marilyn
Manson, Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, etc.; the "goth" movement, some art, Stephen
King, movies and novels, etc.)
- What authors throughout history dealt
with these themes? (Possible answers: Poe, Stephen King, Clive Barker)
- How
would vampires and an interest in death fit in with the Romantic movement in literature?
(Possible answers: isolation, supernatural, outcast hero, part of nature)
- What
connection is there between the Romantic themes and the themes of the 21st
century popular culture?
Print out and make copies for students of
the two graphic organizers, provided in pdf format: Graphic Organizer for Analysis (or send students to the Interactive Version)
and Graphic Organizer Baudelaire vs. The World.
Suggested Activities
1: Experiencing Baudelaire
2: What's so Romantic?
3: Baudelaire vs. the World! For all French and World Literature levels - cooperative activity Give
some background information on the Decadent movement in Romanticism. Distribute
French texts. Teachers of French should read the poems aloud or ask advanced students
to read them aloud. Ask students to comment on the poetic forms; students should
recognize sonnets, rhyme scheme, and quatrains. You may need to point out certain
French punctuation conventions: << represent quotation marks and a long
dash --- indicates someone is speaking, as opposed to narration. 1: Experiencing Baudelaire Put students in groups of three, and
assign each group a poem to read and "translate." Using cognates and basic knowledge
of etymology, all students should be able to recognize basic horror words such
as "vampire," "woman," "death," "poison," "pus," etc. Ask World Literature classes
and lower levels of French classes to guess at the meanings of the poems. Remind
them of basic vocabulary roots to assist, or allow the use of French dictionaries.
Upper levels of French should be able to translate more accurately. Allow fifteen
minutes for translation activity. Have each group read their translations aloud.
Distribute accurate English translations and ask groups to read each aloud.
2: What's so Romantic?
Distribute the graphic
organizer and ask students select at least three elements from the columns and
to analyze the poems for the selected elements. At the end of each row, have students
summarize Baudelaire's view of these elements: For example, what does he say about
nature? About the supernatural? What makes his Romantic "hero" an outcast? At
the bottom of each column, have students summarize the main theme of the poem
itself. Lower level students can report their findings to the class. Upper level
students can use the graphic organizer as a foundation for an essay on the topic
of Baudelaire's Romantic view.
3: Baudelaire vs. the World!
Using the
graphic organizer as a touchstone, students of World Literature classes can expand
the chart to include Shakespeare's love sonnets, Marvell's To His Coy Mistress,
Artur Rimbaud's The Sleeper in the Valley, or other works such as Goethe's
Faust, Stoker's Dracula, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and
Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner or Kubla Khan. In groups
of three, students select at least two other Romantic texts from their experience
to compare to and contrast with Baudelaire's works. Extending the
Lesson- Have students explore the French text and Sigler translation
sites to select other poems by Baudelaire on their own.
- Ask them to find
other poems by Baudelaire which do not have the themes of death or horror.
- Ask
them to select illustrations for the poems they select on their own and present
them as a poster for the class.
- Have them report their findings to the
class and comment on the scope of Baudelaire's interests.
- Ask students
to compose a sonnet in the style of Baudelaire or on the themes of Baudelaire
and the Decadent era.
- All students can compare works of Baudelaire to
any modern artist from the music, art, or fiction industries in terms of attitude
toward women, despair and nihilism, restlessness and dissatisfaction with life,
etc.
Selected EDSITEment Websites
Standards Alignment
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