Baudelaire's "The Voyage" shows us "an oasis of horror in a desert of tedium." The universe is vast through the perspective of the child because the child sees the possibility of his dreams being fulfilled. As adults, we gain a sense of resentment and longing, as our dreams remain unfulfilled. By going on a journey, we are "soothing our infinity on the finite of the seas." Thus, we ground our anxiety over our inability to realize our dreams, which is ultimately, an anxiety over mortality. The notion of "soothing our infinity" is crucial. For we are trying to appease the yearning for the boundless eternal with the seduction of "worldly" things. This process was later termed by theologian Paul Tillich as "the anxiety of non-being," whereby the individual has no choice but to create a reality rather than face the abyss. In the following sections, Baudelaire establishes a dialogue between those who have not travelled (and thus believe in it) and the travellers. Section III mocks both "characters." The travellers' memories are caskets, which are also limited by the boundaries of mortality and space. The land-bound are also imprisoned by their own limitations. Baudelaire tells us of "true travellers" who accept their limitations and thus, gain a sense of the boundless: But the true travellers are those, and those alone, who set out only for the journey's sake, and with light balloon-like hearts they never swerve from their destiny...those whose desires are shaped like the clouds, and who like the conscript dreaming of his cannon, dream of boundless, ever-changing, unexplored sensualities which the human mind has never been able to name. But, Baudelaire is telling us more than this through this passage. Through the language itself, we are encountering a correspondence between object and subject. The true traveller realizes "the world which is external to the artist (i.e. the traveller) and the artist himself." Thus, the simile becomes a vehicle for communicating the universal analogy. Because their hearts are like balloons and their desires like clouds, they are floating free through the ocean. The subject (true travellers) is broken down into the object (the surroundings) through the tool of simile. In section II, he describes man as completely powerless over his curiosity and addresses his search for rest. But, the soul will not have it. We search for Icaria and delude ourselves by inventing Americas. The travellers give us a message reminiscent of Ecclesiastes, as there is nothing new under the sun. They see new cities and landscapes, but they find themselves bored. They collect specimens for the land-bound: We have hailed idols trunked like elephants; thrones bestarred with luminous gems; sculptured palaces whose faery splendour would be a ruinous dream for your bankers... But, the desire does not vanish with the voyage. The bitter longings which induced the voyage remain unfulfilled by objective reality. The only satisfaction described by these travellers is "the mysterious magnetism of those which Chance makes from the clouds." Beauty is both transitory and eternal for Baudelaire, a correspondence of subject and object. The travellers, at this juncture, resemble the "true travellers" who are unified with their destiny (i.e. their limitations) and subsequently dissolve the subject and object by having their desires "shaped like the clouds." As the dialogue continues in VI, Baudelaire drives the point home that the dilemma is inherently human, not geographical. Abuse of power, stupidity, pride, and the resulting narcissism are inescapable. The only "escape" offered here is once again, oriented towards the subjective experience. This message is "the most important thing of all" that the travellers tell the land-bound. The "tedious prisons" are our image, our humanity, which cannot be "solved" externally. Both the land-bound and the travellers speak of this, and thus it is inescapable, for there is nowhere else to go. Our "infinity" can be soothed through opium or the Lotus, which are the embodiments of the escape from our material surroundings. But, he knows that this is a dangerous solution, as "we scent the ghost behind those familiar tones." For if we embrace the Lotus, we will "miss the boat," as Ulysses' companions did in their voyage. This is, in a sense, an "afternoon without end" because we ultimately face death. Embracing death is the ultimate voyage. The true traveller knows death so well that he will dive into the gulf's depths. These "depths" are not rooted in worldly things, but in consciousness, in the Unknown. It is only in this subjective dialogue with the world that Baudelaire can hope to find something new. Mallarme's "Sea Breeze" expresses a yearning for the beyond which persists in "The Voyage." Mallarme is not only troubled by the flesh, but also by the fact that even "all the books" cannot fill him up. This longing for the beyond lies neither in the intellect nor in the body, but in some etely exhausting. Mallarme leaves no room for questioning him on these matters. There is not one book that is unread. The flesh is sad, and we are forced into a distance from him on this point. It is told to us as a statement of fact, without detail. This method contrasts with Baudelaire's approach, which often seeks to disclose truth and explain it. For example, section VI of "The Voyage" explicitly discloses Baudelaire's opinions on human nature. This is part of the enormous differences in method of presentation, diction, and idiom in "The Voyage" and "Sea Breeze." Baudelaire's text is long, nearly epic in its presentation, while Mallarme's is comparatively sparse. Baudelaire's text contains extensive dialogues and a multiplicity of perspectives from different "characters." But, Mallarme presents his text from a singular viewpoint, that of the first person. But, this is a self observing itself. Baudelaire may be inclined to make a statement about himself, but he often utilizes the technique of referring to tendencies that "we" have. This is a perspective of a self integrated in a social setting, something entirely devoid from Mallarme. We find little interaction with others. When we do, in lines such as the "last farewell of handkerchiefs," there is great doubt regarding his integration with the environment. Thus, Baudelaire's style of writing is necessarily more inclusive due to his utilization of dialogue and the first person plural pronoun. Both Mallarme and Baudelaire bring the reader to the abyss, but the vehicles they utilize are antithetical. The comparatively sparse nature of Mallarme's text reveals another way to create the "alchemy of the word." Mallarme succeeds in that his language "wrote silences and nights, (I) expressed the inexpressible." Through language, Mallarme shows us that the objective reality of the voyage is less important than the alchemy, the void that results from the silence of his abyss: Witness the imagery in this poem and one will see it disappear into nothingness. In contrast, Baudelaire imbues his text with rich imagery. The abyss is "black as ink" and the heart is "full of shafts of light." It is not only that his text is long, but that the language itself immerses the reader in the abundance of images. By naming the things that will not possibly prevent his departure, Mallarme provides us with insight into why he is going. There are three specific images which he provides us with: Nothing - not old gardens reflected in the eyes...
(and later) nor the desolate light of my lamp on the empty paper, defended by its own whiteness, nor the young wife feeding her child. I shall depart! Mallarme addresses natural, bodily and intellectual growth (and death) in these passages. They are not enough for him. The gardens are old and distant from him. They are removed from their autonomous nature to the point that they are addressed as reflections in the eyes. This collapsing of subject and object, this earthly correspondence, cannot keep him on land. Whereas Baudelaire states that there is nothing in the voyage which surpasses the "mysterious magnetism which Chance makes from the clouds," Mallarme is reluctant to see this correspondence as necessarily fruitful. He has read all the books, but the paper remains empty. The image of the young wife feeding her child invokes notions of love and an implicit eroticism, for sexuality is the source of the child's existence. But, as we know, the flesh is sad. Three of the greatest sources of human inspiration have been discarded as less enticing than the plunge into the sea. This great sense of incompleteness echoes Baudelaire's desire to "soothe infinity on the finite of seas." For all three images are of creation and birth. They are the closest we come to infinity, as the writer finds "immortality" in his text and the mother finds it in her child. The 'viewer's' correspondence with the garden could easily be a "form of beauty containing something eternal (nature) and something transitory" (the viewer), but even this collapse will not prevent another journey, another collapse with eternity. Although Mallarme never sets sail, the reader knows that the body, our humanity is tedious and sad. Mallarme tells us of "a tedium saddened by cruel hopes still believes in the last farewell of handkerchiefs." Thus, Mallarme suggests a wisdom here that differentiates sharply from the land-bound in Baudelaire's "The Voyage." He suggests that there is an intimacy strong enough to merit such a farewell. But, he gains the self-distance that is necessary to perceive the fallacy of his hopes. Both Baudelaire and Mallarme sense an incompleteness, a shadow behind these seductions. And, they turn towards the abyss of the sea, embracing a final nothingness, which encompasses death itself. It is not the seduction of worldly experience that seems to entice Mallarme, as is the case with Baudelaire's travellers. Although he will "raise anchor for exotic landscapes," this image disappears into nothingness. Like a heart soaked in the sea, his images wash up over themselves and dissipate into the abyss: And perhaps the masts, inviting storms, are among those that a gale bends above wrecks that are lost, without masts, without masts or fertile islands... This yearning for escape is reminiscent of the opium and Lotus consumption in Baudelaire. Mallarme is seeking another infinite, which borders on nothingness. He wants to escape into "unknown foam and the skies." These images are close to the abyss in that a sea foam dissipates when grasping it and the sky is objectively infinite. He calls to his heart to "listen to the sailors' song." This Dionysian collapse into song and drunkenness obliterates the self, like the heart soaked in sea. Mallarme, like Baudelaire, seeks to plummet "into the depths of the Unknown" and discover a new internal dialogue with the world, one that is not as "an old garden reflected in the eyes." Finally, the direction of these two poems are entirely different. "The Voyage" serves as an anti-epic, replete with commentaries on the failures of the voyagers. Thus, Baudelaire is more interested in directly addressing the dilemma of human-kind. We find little evidence of an interest in others, in human-kind in "Sea Breeze." Through the dialogues between those that have travelled, those who have not, and the omniscient commentary on the "true travellers," Baudelaire has presented the reader with both a despair about his internal condition and a despair about society. Mallarme's text is much more focused in this respect, as it proceeds to deal only with the subjective experience of the character in the text. There is no "you." He is not interested in scorning human-kind's abuse of power, but in his personal voyage. |
