The Jewels (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Charles Baudelaire
- First Published: 1857
- Type of Work: Narrative
- Genres: Poetry, Narrative poetry
- Subjects: Tigers, France or French people, Love or romance, Sex or sexuality, Biracial people, Beauty, Adultery, Animals, Jewelry, Angels, Swans
The Poem
In “The Jewels,” a poem composed of eight quatrains in regular Alexandrine lines, Charles Baudelaire records a portrait of his mulatto mistress dressed only in her jewelry. While the description will not seem excessively graphic to the modern reader, this poem was one of the ones responsible for the censure and withdrawal from sale of the first edition of Les Fleurs du mal (1857; Flowers of Evil, 1909).
The principal development of the poem follows a seduction scene in which the woman seduces, and thus psychologically dominates, the poet. The...
[The entire page is 1523 words long]
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