Text: Joel Benton, “Baudelaire and Poe: A Brief Parallel,” In the Poe Circle (1899), pp. 69-80

[page 69:]

IF we except Boetie and Montaigne, who were distinct contemporaries and personal friends, one may search very far through literary annals to find two writers with closer affinities of thought than Baudelaire and Poe. The French author seems to have been born to celebrate and continue the Poesque aroma and effluence.

Not merely their tastes and manner were alike; their careers, too, have close resemblances. Poe was born in 1809, and his French admirer in 1821 — a dozen years later. Baudelaire's father dying when the son was but six years old placed him very soon under new control. He found himself, the year after this event, under the rule of a stepfather. It is said this foster-parent, [page 70:] who was Colonel Aupick, was proud of his stepson, but wished to give him a military career. The determination on the boy's part to be a poet was, however, dominant ; and this collision of plans may have stirred him to the irregularities that followed, and led to his expulsion from college.

An English writer said some years ago that Colonel Aupick, having been promoted to a general's position, could have given his stepson a rapid advancement if he had been willing to join the army; but, “to the immense surprise of his parents,” he would not. Nothing should win him but the profession of letters.

“The young man hated his stepfather, the reasons he gave for his hatred being that he was his stepfather, that he was very demonstrative, and that he knew nothing of literature.” One must see how nearly like Mr. Allan's attitude to Poe this situation proved to be.

Baudelaire flew to Paris from his home [page 71:] in Lyons, and was charmed with its literary circle and “the magic” of his new world. “He struck up an acquaintance with Balzac,” says Esme Stuart, “and set up as a ‘dandy.’” In the mean time he was working hard; “but when barely twenty years old his mother interfered, and, enforcing her legal authority, sent him to India in or der to separate him from his evil surroundings.” Within ten months he would tole rate exile no longer, and returned suddenly to Paris.

The writer who gives this account says: “His absence must have helped to give him greater mastery over English, which language in after years was to bring him to the knowledge of Edgar Allan Poe. When the poet's majority arrived, he found himself with £3,000 in his pocket and delivered from parental authority. Then began his unfettered bachelor life. He determined, if possible, to be something — to aim at perfection; but the taste for beautiful pictures [page 72:] and antique furniture led him into extrava gance little in accordance with his means.”

Through a dealer more shrewd than honest, he was saddled with a burden of indebtedness that saddened his remaining years. With debts and a vacant pocketbook he could feel the position as well as he could absorb the poetry of Poe. It is a singular double parable that his career presents; for he had on his creative and un worldly side the dainty taste and musical charm of his model. The torment for attaining perfection was his in a marvellous degree. Mr. Stuart describes him as “always touching and retouching his verses, over consumed by the passion for style, which to the ordinary public is merely an insane mania.”

Like Poe, he required moods for his work. He was a critic and art lover too. In dress, and in a multitude of ways, he had marked idiosyncrasies. He sympathized with democracy; and for a time was [page 73:] somewhat demonstrative against aristocratic ways. The revolution of 1848 was in the air, and it touched “his impressionable brain.”

He was unfortunate in titling a collection of his poems “Fleurs du Mai” He claimed to show that evil was not wholly without its better side, and that good is in some mysterious manner related to the whole scheme of things. It is an attitude not so unfamiliar in France as it is in England and America. Victor Hugo praised the play of his art by saying: “Art is like the azure — it is an infinite field, and you have just proved it.”

Good as his work was in the sense of form and art, he had his struggle with editors, as Poe did. For work far more excellent than journalism could show or than editors demanded he could only obtain the low rates of the journalistic craft. He was a frequent wanderer “in out-of-the-way places, looking worn, wan, and shabby.” “No wonder,” [page 74:] says Mr. Stuart, whose condensed account of him is most graphic, “that more than ever Edgar Poe seemed to him his twin brother of misfortune.” He at last “had recourse to stimulants,” to put the real away from his vision. To Belgium he hurried in despair, and from that country writes thus:

“Think what I suffer in a place where the trees are black and the flowers are with out scent, and where no conversation worth the name can be heard. You might go all over Belgium and not find a soul that speaks.”

He longs for his mother, “who takes such care not to reproach me.” In truth, says this chronicler, “she was another Mrs. Clemm, and the sick man, remembering his childhood, longed for her care and sympathy.” Not happy with publishers, or in being able to secure a sufficient hope or reward for his works, he fell ill. His death, through brain paralysis, was equal in its [page 75:] tragedy to Poe's — if it did not surpass that unfortunate poet's ending.

I have not chosen to dwell upon the moral side of Baudelaire's work. There is no room in these notes for a literary parallel to do more than mark that. And how striking and singular a one it is! Baudelaire does not deny that he echoed at times, whether consciously or otherwise, Poe's thoughts. He also gave a large portion of his work to make Poe more widely known. Four of his eight volumes are “consecrated to Poe” and his writings.

The two affinities never met, and it is not certain that Baudelaire's name was one with which Poe was ever acquainted. Edgar Allan Poe died in 1 849, aged forty, and Charles Baudelaire in 1867, aged forty-six years.