L’Étranger
I. Introduction
Originally published in 1862, and included as the very first in Baudelaire’s posthumous collection of prose poems (Le Spleen de Paris, a.k.a. Petits poèmes en prose, 1869), this must be close to the simplest and shortest text Baudelaire ever wrote. At the same time, it nonetheless touches on a number of the author’s primary themes.
In the dedication that prefaces the work occurs the famous sentence (the translation is somewhat free):
| Quel est celui de nous qui n’a pas, dans ses jours d’ambition, rêvé le miracle d’une prose poétique, musicale sans rhythme et sans rime, assez souple et assez heurtée pour s’adapter aux mouvements lyriques de l’âme, aux ondulations de la rêverie, aux soubresauts de la conscience? | Is there any of us who has not, in his more ambitious days, imagined longingly the miracle of a poetical prose, musical though without rhythm or rhyme, supple and yet angular enough to match the lyrical impulses of the soul, the undulations of reverie, the sudden leaps of consciousness? |
Like the better-known Fleurs du mal, these prose poems were to be evocations of modern city life, for which purpose the freer form was particularly apt:
| C’est surtout de la fréquentation des villes énormes, c’est du croisement de leurs innombrables rapports que naît cet idéal obsédant. | It is above all from the commerce with enormous cities, from the intersecting of their innumerable links, that this obsessive ideal is born. |
I give first the poem without any glossing, then a line-by-line gloss-cum-interpretation, and lastly the text with a fairly literal translation.
For those learning to read French, I say: Every word and every construction in this poem should be a part of your permanent word-hoard. Consequently, it would make sense for you to memorize this text.
II. The Poem in French
Qui aimes-tu le mieux, homme éniqmatique, dis? ton père, ta mère, ta sœur ou ton frère?
— Je n’ai ni père, ni mère, ni sœur, ni frère.
— Tes amis?
— Vous vous servez là d’une parole dont le sens m’est resté jusqu’à ce jour inconnu.
— Ta patrie?
— J’ignore sous quelle latitude elle est situé.
— La beauté?
— Je l’aimerais volontiers, déesse et immortelle.
— L’or?
— Je le hais comme vous haïssez Dieu.
— Ah! qu’aimes-tu donc, extraordinaire étranger?
— J’aime les nuages… les nuages qui passent… là-bas… là-bas… les merveilleux nuages!
III. The Poem Glossed
There is no indication of who the questioner is, but as the interview continues one gathers that the person answering represents “the poet” as conceived of by CB. In some ways, however, the questioner, too, resembles CB, at least in that he understands the poet well enough to ask to the questions he does.
Qui aimes-tu le mieux, homme éniqmatique, dis? ton père, ta mère, ta sœur ou ton frère?
— Je n’ai ni père, ni mère, ni sœur, ni frère.
Language
le mieux – See the Language file Degrees of Comparison and in particular this section: VI. Synthetic Forms.
Interpretation
The question and its answer together have a biblical ring. Compare: the Lord’s real mother and brothers are not his biological kin, but those who do the will of his Father (Matthew 12:50); to be the Lord’s disciple, one must hate one’s father, mother, wife, brothers, and sisters (Luke 14:26). Similarly, one might say, the poet must cut his ties, go out, and fulfill his destiny… Alternatively, the poet has been rejected (with horror and disgust) by those naturally closest to him (see “Benediction,” almost the first poem in les Fleurs du mal), and he (the poet) now returns the favor.
— Tes amis?
— Vous vous servez là d’une parole dont le sens m’est resté jusqu’à ce jour inconnu.
Language
Vous vous servez – For the meanings of servir, go to Irregular Verb Groupings. 1.A Dormir-type and scroll down a little. All four uses of servir are important to know.
parole – Une parole is a somewhat fancier alternative for un mot = “a word.” Both can mean either an individual word or an expression containing several words.
dont – For the ins and outs of this form, see The Relative Adverb Dont. Its antecedent in this sentence is parole, but in its own (relative) clause it is attached to the noun sens.
est restée – Rester is a House-of-Being verb; for these verbs, see House of Being Verbs. For an explanation of why rester appears here in the passé composé, see the second section of this same file, The True Raison d’Être of the Maison d’Être.
Interpretation
The syntax of the answer is very elaborate; its elaborateness, and the extreme periodic order by which the adjective inconnu is pushed to the very end (whereas the poet could have just said “I don’t know what that word means”), contrasts humorously with the simplicity of the question. —Why should the poet (assuming that this is the poet speaking) not know the meaning of the word “friend”? No doubt it is another instance of his isolation: no family, no friends… (However, this line makes me think of what Catherine Deneuve once said to an interviewer who had asked: Catherine Deneuve, avez-vous des amis? De vrais amis?: —Des amis? C’est beaucoup dire. Quand je suis avec des gens qui me plaisent, je reste avec eux; sinon, je m’en vais.)
— Ta patrie?
— J’ignore sous quelle latitude elle est situé.
Language
J’ignore – False Friend Alert (†††)! En bon français, ignorer = “not to know, to be ignorant of.” Hence j’ignore means neither more nor less than je ne sais pas. It is a fancier way of saying it, however.
sous – This preposition is occasionally used in what are, to English-speakers, surprising places. sous cette optique, sous cette angle, sous cette perspective = “from this perspective.” Perhaps the lines of latitude and longitude are conceived of as a frame somewhere above the surface of the planet, and we are consequently “under” a certain latitude. Alternatively, the explanation might be, imagining two people looking at a map with lines of latitude drawn on it: “You see this line of latitude?” “Yes.” “Well, where we’re located is just a bit below it.”
Interpretation
The scope of the poet’s isolation continues to widen: no family, no friend, no country. And this fellow has been all around the world, or at least all around a map of the world: hence the use of the term “latitude.” No place is home to him; no place has a claim on his loyalty.
— La beauté?
— Je l’aimerais volontiers, déesse et immortelle.
Language
l’ must = la, since déesse et immortelle are feminine.
déesse et immortelle – One should understand: parce qu’elle est déesse et immortelle.
Interpretation
For Baudelaire, beauty is the special province, being the inspirer, of the poet, and so of course the poet knows about her and loves her. Or…does he? Why the conditional here (aimerais)? Presumably, because he finds beauty nowhere in the world he normally inhabits; she belongs to a different realm (and is perhaps only imaginary). He would love her, if she existed and if he could find her.
— L’or?
— Je le hais comme vous haïssez Dieu.
Language
haïr – This word being of Germanic origin, its initial h is a so-called “aspirate h,” meaning that it does not allow elision or liaison. Je le hais [ʒə lə hɛ], vous haïssez [vu a i se].
Interpretation
It is understandable that the poet should hate gold, but the rest of his answer is puzzling. I interpret it in the following way (which I am not sure is correct, but it contents me). Baudelaire was not a believer, certainly not a conventional one, but on the other hand he was not a foe of Christianity (see Eliot’s 1930 essay “Baudelaire,” reprinted in Selected Essays [1932, 1951]) and he did not hold a brief against a possible God. But his questioner (vous) does hate God (or so the poet asserts). I take it that vous here represents the bourgeois mentality B thought was dominant in his day, which appreciated only material things and “progress” (of a scientific, practical kind) and despised and belittled any value not rooted in matter. Such a person would necessarily hate God, even while disbelieving in him, since God represents an order of values other than what he, the bourgeois materialist, admitted. Consequently, here just as in the scriptural parable (Matthew 6:24, Luke 16:13), God and “mammon” (l’or) are absolutely opposed.
— Ah! qu’aimes-tu donc, extraordinaire étranger?
— J’aime les nuages… les nuages qui passent… là-bas… là-bas… les merveilleux nuages!
Language
là-bas means literally “down there,” but is commonly used to refer to any place far away from the speaker. I explain this use to myself (kiddingly) thus: a French person conceives of hurrim-self as being at the top of the world. Any place at a remove from hurrim is, consequently, necessarily down (just as all directions from the North Pole are south). – Here, of course, the place referred to is up in the air, but perhaps the clouds the poet is referring to are seen on the horizon.
Interpretation
The natural habitat for the poet is the sky, that is, the imaginary, the ideal. See, among other relevant poems by CB, L’Albatros and Le Cygne.
A Final Note
Does the title of this poem have anything to do with the title of Albert Camus’s most famous work, the 1942 novel l’Étranger? Clearly, Camus had ample reasons for thinking of his character as a “stranger,” without there needing to have been an external influence, in addition to which fact there is no obvious poetical side to AC’s hero Meursault. On the other hand, I have a notion that Camus was in various ways strongly attached to Baudelaire’s œuvre, and the idea that he may have been thinking of Baudelaire when he named his novel is an attractive one.
IV. The Poem Translated
| Qui aimes-tu le mieux, homme éniqmatique, dis? ton père, ta mère, ta sœur ou ton frère? | Whom do you love best, strange man, say! Your father, your mother, your sister, or your brother? |
| — Je n’ai ni père, ni mère, ni sœur, ni frère. | I have neither father, nor mother, nor sister, nor brother. |
| — Tes amis? | Your friends? |
| — Vous vous servez là d’une parole dont le sens m’est resté jusqu’à ce jour inconnu. | You are using there a word the meaning of which has remained for me, up to this day, unknown. |
| — Ta patrie? | Your mother country? |
| — J’ignore sous quelle latitude elle est situé. | I am unaware under what latitude it lies. |
| — La beauté? | Beauty? |
| — Je l’aimerais volontiers, déesse et immortelle. | I would love her willingly, (since she is) a goddess and immortal. |
| — L’or? | Gold? |
| — Je le hais comme vous haïssez Dieu. | I hate it, just as you hate God. |
| — Ah! qu’aimes-tu donc, extraordinaire étranger? | Just what then do you love, extraordinary stranger? |
| — J’aime les nuages… les nuages qui passent… là-bas… là-bas… les merveilleux nuages! | I love the clouds… the clouds that pass… over there… over there… the marvelous clouds! |
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Regarding Beauty: déesse et immortelle.
My interpretation of this part refers to in my mind to the following: Beaudelaire is referring to beauty in art, were it attainable and immortal, understanding fully that his is a work in progress, that beauty canons change with the ages and that, should he eventually attain that kind of status, he might soon be forgotten.
Thank you for this interpretation ! It helped a lot !
I see the clouds as representative of impermanence, a lack of clinging. I wonder if there’s any Buddhist influence or eastern philosophical thought here?
I simply enjoy the simplicity of the image of clouds passing…Love and biophilia..loving humankind and nature in simplicity and sustainability
Poets are as clouds, wandering lonely o’er dales and hills
This particular, fictional, poet certainly feels a kinship with clouds, but also feels separated from the same, being painfully earthbound (like the poor albatross in Baudelaire’s poem
“l’Albatros” and the poor swan in Baudelaire’s “le Cygne.”)