Charles Baudelaire uses his works to describe his idea of spleen, or “the restless malaise that afflicts modern life” (Bedford 414). The spleen is an organ that removes toxins from the human body, but for Baudelaire it is also a symbol of melancholy, moral degradation and the destruction of the human spirit, caused by the constraints of modern life. Baudelaire uses shocking and grotesque images to attack the sensibilities of readers, in an attempt to unmask the beauty inherent in even the most reviled aspects of life. Baudelaire brings toxins to light, which are purified by the spleen, so that society can accept and overcome them. In Carrion, the author uses his shocking style to impress upon the reader the beautiful and immortal nature of love. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayCarrion is a memoir, from one lover to another, of a day when the lovers came across a rotting carcass. The poem's speaker recounts, in macabre detail, the cleansing of the carcass. Baudelaire's vivid description of decadence is his way of expressing spleen. As he recounts the corpse with “its belly slippery with lethal sweat/and swollen with foul gases” (ll 7-8), the image mirrors the toxins, from which the spleen cleanses the body. Through vivid images of decadence, Baudelaire draws the reader's attention to the repugnant nature of Death. The image of the dog “waiting for the opportunity to resume his interrupted feast” (ll 35-36), warns the reader of the looming presence of Death and his duty to reclaim the life so precious. In reminding the reader of his impermanence and the sad reality of death, Baudelaire also serves the dual purpose of showing the beauty that lies beneath the surface of humanity's destiny. The speaker tries to convey the beautiful side of the grotesque mechanics of death. All living beings must die, but this death leads to the continuation of life. Baudelaire illustrates this circle of life in the lines: “The tide of trembling parasites sank,/then boiled again/as if the carcass, breathing,/by their life revived” (ll 21-24). Using the image of imitating carcass breathing, the author shows the reader that life continues even after death. Although this life-in-death is a macabre sight, the image of the “sun illuminated that rot” (ll 9), “like a gaping flower” (ll 14), and “made a curious music there –/like running water , O wind” (ll 25-26) alludes to the beauty that Baudelaire tries to convey. Only through the death of a creature can other life thrive. The image of life in the death of the body is the author's preface to the immortal beauty of love and its transcendence of death itself. The memory of the lover, provided by the author, may be disgusting in its graphic nature, but Baudelaire uses it to illustrate that love can survive even the decay of death. The author writes this poem for a love, which he considers his "soul", so it is understandable that the poem was not written to shock that love, but to frame a deeper meaning. The author goes so far as to point out “Yet you will come to this offense,/to this horrible decadence” (ll 37-38), to give the weight of inevitable death to the message of his love. Baudelaire's message about the immortal nature of love is summed up in the lover's final statement: "But while their kisses devour you,/My beauty, tell the worms/I have preserved the sacred essence, saved/the form of my loves rotted." !” (ll 45-48). This last stanza shows the true meaning of the gruesome memory of Baudelaire's lover. Love is an immortal beauty, which compensates for the.
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