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This reminds be of a hilarious problem I once had analyzing a poem in french lit class. Read this and tell me what you think (in english and french)? http://fle

This reminds be of a hilarious problem I once had analyzing a poem in french lit class. Read this and tell me what you think (in english and french)? http://fleursdumal.org/poem/120 http://fleursdumal.org/poem/120 I thought the entire poem was sexual -- singular tree being a euphamism for a phallus, and the waves of the sea reverberations of an orgasm. I was given an F and sent to the principal's office. It was then and there that I decided that math was more my thing.

smallnamespace 10y ago
You're going to have to break down the metaphor more explicitly, because I don't think the structure (logical or otherwise) of the poem really points to such a straightforward interpretation. Like, what is the isle then? Yourself?
QuercusMax 10y ago
It says "singular trees", which I interpret as meaning "unique" or "exotic", not "only one". There's definitely more than just what you were reading there; a fair amount of symbolism (sails and rigging? sailors chanteys?).
- matthewaveryusa 10y ago
  There's a lot in there for sure. I did my due-diligence analyzing the island theme, describing how Baudelaire is evoking all the senses that bring such fond memories. I also had a lengthy section on how this poem can be interpreted sexually. You don't write that you're inhaling the fragrance of breast and not think sex. In the first stanza the exotic perfume of a woman brings the author thoughts of passion. This perfume makes him fantasize. In the next two stanzas the island is a metaphor of his fantasies. The trees and fruits are metaphors for looking at and touching the woman's body. The sails and rigging symbolize sexual pleasure, and the ocean the sexual act. In the last stanza, he comes back from his fantasy and prepares himself to indulge in the act again to the tune of the sailors chant. Flesh that out in 5 pages and that was my essay. I'm not saying it's the correct interpretation, but you can't objectively say it isn't. And the explanation works so why dismiss it? I can only conjecture that the teacher didn't want to get in trouble. Baudelaire was a pervert and his book was banned for its sexual content. I knew that coming in to the essay so given that context it's not far-fetched. Anyhow, who knows right? He could have whiffed a tit and that made him think of this one time he was on a beach with his friends and it was a super cool vacation. I prefer my explanation where the fragrance brought him to a place that John Mayer is expressing in "Your Body Is A Wonderland".
  - mos_basik 10y ago
    You've used the terms "teacher" and "principal" - I hope this all happened in high school. It does make it a bit more understandable that a teacher would want to stay away from risky material with a younger group of students. Of course, who in their right mind would expect that French literature would be a nice safe area of study that doesn't rock the boat of American sexual mores, haha. (I assume this all happened in the US?)
mos_basik 10y ago
Well... I probably would not have arrived at your interpretation myself, but.. I can see the outline from your comment, and presumably if you went into a little more detail in your analysis I'd accepted it as a totally valid interpretation. Probably helps that I'm on the progressive side of the "death of the author" brawl, and that I am a science student, not a humanities student. QuercusMax objects in sister comment to interpreting "singuliers" as "only one".. The line "Des arbres singuliers" clearly indicates to me that there are many trees, regardless of whether their "singularity" means they are all "remarkable, unique" or "free-standing, isolated" (which, the more I read it, the more I understand the basis of your interpretation). In any case, to be accurate, I think your interpretation needed to be compatible with there being many phalluses. (Phalli?) :)
pasquinelli 10y ago
i don't agree with your interpretation either. i mean, you were probably a teenager at the time, and the second line is mentions breasts, which i think primed you to read the other lines through a certain lens. also, you might not've gotten an F just for what the poem said to you, but just from being really badly done, maybe. but i don't see what excuse there is for sending you to the principal's office. just sounds like your teacher was assuming malice and thereby making a problem. my freshman year of high school i had a project where i had to write some kind of collection of poems. i ended up putting together a calendar, with certain days having a poem. there was some kind of rationale to how i picked the days, but i can't remember. i had an error printing it though, and i couldn't get the last two months to print, but i had met my requirements for the project, so i just turned it in. this brought me a very long and irritating discussion with two counselors and the vice principal. they thought: maybe i was gay, maybe i was trans, maybe i had been molested, maybe i was being abused, maybe was planning something violent, maybe the whole thing was a big joke, and maybe i was planning to commit suicide. they wanted an explanation, and all i could say was that i was just... writing some poems shrugs.

smallnamespace 10y ago

You're going to have to break down the metaphor more explicitly, because I don't think the structure (logical or otherwise) of the poem really points to such a straightforward interpretation. Like, what is the isle then? Yourself?

QuercusMax 10y ago

It says "singular trees", which I interpret as meaning "unique" or "exotic", not "only one". There's definitely more than just what you were reading there; a fair amount of symbolism (sails and rigging? sailors chanteys?).

matthewaveryusa 10y ago
There's a lot in there for sure. I did my due-diligence analyzing the island theme, describing how Baudelaire is evoking all the senses that bring such fond memories. I also had a lengthy section on how this poem can be interpreted sexually. You don't write that you're inhaling the fragrance of breast and not think sex. In the first stanza the exotic perfume of a woman brings the author thoughts of passion. This perfume makes him fantasize. In the next two stanzas the island is a metaphor of his fantasies. The trees and fruits are metaphors for looking at and touching the woman's body. The sails and rigging symbolize sexual pleasure, and the ocean the sexual act. In the last stanza, he comes back from his fantasy and prepares himself to indulge in the act again to the tune of the sailors chant. Flesh that out in 5 pages and that was my essay. I'm not saying it's the correct interpretation, but you can't objectively say it isn't. And the explanation works so why dismiss it? I can only conjecture that the teacher didn't want to get in trouble. Baudelaire was a pervert and his book was banned for its sexual content. I knew that coming in to the essay so given that context it's not far-fetched. Anyhow, who knows right? He could have whiffed a tit and that made him think of this one time he was on a beach with his friends and it was a super cool vacation. I prefer my explanation where the fragrance brought him to a place that John Mayer is expressing in "Your Body Is A Wonderland".
- mos_basik 10y ago
  You've used the terms "teacher" and "principal" - I hope this all happened in high school. It does make it a bit more understandable that a teacher would want to stay away from risky material with a younger group of students. Of course, who in their right mind would expect that French literature would be a nice safe area of study that doesn't rock the boat of American sexual mores, haha. (I assume this all happened in the US?)

mos_basik 10y ago

Well... I probably would not have arrived at your interpretation myself, but.. I can see the outline from your comment, and presumably if you went into a little more detail in your analysis I'd accepted it as a totally valid interpretation. Probably helps that I'm on the progressive side of the "death of the author" brawl, and that I am a science student, not a humanities student. QuercusMax objects in sister comment to interpreting "singuliers" as "only one".. The line "Des arbres singuliers" clearly indicates to me that there are many trees, regardless of whether their "singularity" means they are all "remarkable, unique" or "free-standing, isolated" (which, the more I read it, the more I understand the basis of your interpretation). In any case, to be accurate, I think your interpretation needed to be compatible with there being many phalluses. (Phalli?) :)

pasquinelli 10y ago

i don't agree with your interpretation either. i mean, you were probably a teenager at the time, and the second line is mentions breasts, which i think primed you to read the other lines through a certain lens. also, you might not've gotten an F just for what the poem said to you, but just from being really badly done, maybe. but i don't see what excuse there is for sending you to the principal's office. just sounds like your teacher was assuming malice and thereby making a problem. my freshman year of high school i had a project where i had to write some kind of collection of poems. i ended up putting together a calendar, with certain days having a poem. there was some kind of rationale to how i picked the days, but i can't remember. i had an error printing it though, and i couldn't get the last two months to print, but i had met my requirements for the project, so i just turned it in. this brought me a very long and irritating discussion with two counselors and the vice principal. they thought: maybe i was gay, maybe i was trans, maybe i had been molested, maybe i was being abused, maybe was planning something violent, maybe the whole thing was a big joke, and maybe i was planning to commit suicide. they wanted an explanation, and all i could say was that i was just... writing some poems shrugs.