le cygne

Last year in french class, I had to read a book in french and present a book report on it. I decided to read "Les Fleurs du Mal" by Charles Baudelaire which is a collection of poetry witch six thematically different sections. Reading the poem in french was very difficult for me, especially since my french wasn't the best (I had to spend a lot of time flipping through french to English dictionaries) and it was hard for me to pick up on metaphors. However, I still think that, for poetry, a bit of the poem is a loss in translation and there's a beauty to reading a poem in its original language. I did not have enough time to finish reading "Les Fleurs du Mal" so I focus on reading a section of the book called Tableaux Parisiens which described the Paris of Baudelaire's time and also gave some insight on critiques Baudelaire had with France. One of my favorite poems in this section was "le Cygne" (https://fleursdumal.org/poem/220). In this poem, the author wanders around Paris and sees a swan. Suddenly the speaker is struck with grief and nostalgia over how much Paris has changed and begins to compare his experience with that of other exiled figures in literature/mythology such as Andromanche (Hector's wife in greek mythology who mourned the death of her husband and loss of Troy in the Trojan war).

Here is my favorite stanza from the poem:

"Paris changes! but naught in my melancholy
Has stirred! New palaces, scaffolding, blocks of stone,
Old quarters, all become for me an allegory,
And my dear memories are heavier than rocks."

I got a deep sense of nostalgic yearning for the "old" Paris in this line as well a sense of regret for how fast time passes. Considering that Baudelaire wrote "Le Cygne" during the rebuilding of Paris after the revolution of 1848, many aspects of the city that he was once familiar with have drastically changed. In addition, I get the impression that the speaker seems to feel like he's "in exile" even though he is still in Paris, a city he should be familiar with. The speaker wanders through Paris but is constantly weighed down by his past memories of the old Paris. He feels a strong sense of disconnect in a familiar place. I've always thought of Paris as "the city of love" and a tourist destination, so it was interesting, and a little sad, to see Baudelaire's perspective. I haven't experience the exact feelings of Baudelaire yet, but I wonder if I will experience this feeling when I get older and visit places I frequent during my childhood.

god I hate corn

I've had a strong dislike of cornfields for the past four years. Before, I was mostly indifferent to cornfields, whenever I drove past any cornfields I would always just ignore them. To me, the cornfields of Illinois always looked kind of ugly, especially when compared to the ocean or to the mountains. But lately, I think my relationship with corn has grown a bit more complex. I may joke about cornfields being ugly, but I've always associated the thought of my hometown with corn. I associated corn with central Illinois, so I suspect that in 20 years the thought of corn might make me feels a little nostalgic. So I think I'll leave Ode to Maize by Pablo Neruda in my time capsule (https://www.poemhunter.com/poems/ode/page-1/29283/). Although my experience with corn may be different than Neruda's, I can still appreciate and relate to his appreciation for maize.

"Then the husks parted
and fruitfulness burst its veils
of pale papyrus
that grains of laughter
might fall upon the earth."

This was one of my favorite stanzas in Neruda's poem because of how vividly descriptive it was. I just like how Neruda makes corn feel so joyful.

"Oh, to bite into
the steaming ear beside the sea
of distant song and deepest waltz.
To boil you
As your aroma
spreads through
blue sierras."

I'll admit that while I find cornfields a little ugly I really like eating corn. In that respect, I thought that the above stanza from Neruda's poem conjured up a lot of childhood memories for me. I can clearly remember the feeling of biting a still steaming ear of waxy corn my mother just made, or the smell of corn cooking, or the experience of eating sweet corn at Urbana's annual sweet corn festival.

So while my experience with corn isn't exactly the same as Neruda's, (It's awfully hard to "bite into the steaming ear beside the sea" when you live in landlocked Illinois) I think this poem would still instill a sense of nostalgia in me for Central Illinois and my youth.

Old People

It was hard for me to find a poem that was unfamiliar to me since usually I'm attracted to poetry that I can relate and connect to. But, for this blog post, I decided to examine a poem about aging. I'm a teenager and it's already hard enough to view the world from my parents' perspective sometimes, so I thought reading a poem about growing old would be interesting. I read "Growing Old" by Matthew Arnold" (link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52311/growing-old)

What first struck me about this poem was the author's definition of aging. When I think about aging, I usually think about the physical effects such as the greying hair, the wrinkles, the loss of memory. When I imagine myself as an old person, I think of myself sitting by the fire muttering about how good things were back in the day. I imagine myself to be full of regrets for things I didn't try when I was younger. However, Arnold argues that aging is more than this. He writes that aging " 'tis not what in youth we dreamed 'twould be!". Instead, Arnold frames aging as an almost emotionless process -- which I personally found more frightening.

Here are some lines of Arnold's poem "Growing Old" that I found fascinating:

"It is to spend long days
And not once feel that we were ever young;"

"Deep in our hidden heart
Festers the dull remembrance of a change,
But no emotion -- none"

"It is -- the last stage of all --
When we are frozen up within, and quite
The phantom of ourselves,
To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost
Which blamed the living man."

Obviously, I can't relate to the process of growing old so I don't understand this poem entirely. However, I always imagine that the most painful thing about growing old would be the contrast with youth. You don't look the way you used to do. Your memory wasn't as good as when you were younger. Aging is scary for me because I won't be young anymore or maybe won't remember the experience of being young at all. In that respect, I can understand a little bit of the sentiment of Arnold's poem. In addition, Arnold frames the process of growing old as this utterly emotionless and hollow process. But I can't imagine how being emotionless would feel or how it would feel to be "frozen up within". In addition, although I've never experienced what it's like to be old, I don't completely agree with Arnold's depiction of aging. According to him, aging seems like such a cynical and negative process. However, I think there are probably some joyful things about aging.

I also found the last two lines to be interesting. I don't know the exact meaning of the last two lines but I interpreted as the speaker express his sorrow for the fact that people or society will acknowledge the accomplishments of your youth but the acknowledgment feels hollow because you aren't the same person anymore. My parents have always told me that you have to work hard when your younger so that you can have a more successful life when you're older. In some respects, I think that advice is valid but Arnold's poem "Growing Old" serves as a counterpoint to that idea. Would it really be worth it wait until your old to enjoy yourself when your body and mind start failing you?