Les chats Charles Baudelaire anglais

Write a critical commentary on this sonnet by Charles Baudelaire:

The poem les chats, by Charles Baudelaire, includes a range of multi-facet ideas. At heart, it praises cats by making them appear as noble and common domestic animals. However, as we delve further, we realise that we should not trust appearances. The Cats are, in fact, invincible, mysterious animals. In this commentary, we will examine the cats' paradoxical praise and the purpose for showing them as seekers and discoverers of the absolute.

In terms of structure, the poem follows an irregular and atypical sonnet rhyme scheme; ABBA CDDC EEF GFG. Rhymes A, D, E and G are feminine rhymes and B, C and F are masculine rimes. This irregularity follows with the duplicity structure of the poem and description of the cats. Similar to how the description of the cat's changes throughout the poem, and nothing remains regular, neither does the structure. The rhymes chains divide into three strophic units: two quatrains and one sestet composed of two tercets. The classification of verses and the grammatical categories throughout the structure emphasises the importance of grammar and rhyme.

In the first stanza, the author describes the pure moral, physical, intellectual and spiritual praise of the cats and those who love them. The first line contains nothing but adjectives, and of these, the two subjects' les amoureux' and 'les savants' display verbal routes. In this way, it becomes clear that Baudelaire chooses an elite audience and manages to communicate with them through their love of art and the beauty of life. However, the definite article in the plural 'les' includes all 'lovers'  and all scholars, creating generality. The two opposing human categories (sensual and intellectual) come together in their love of animals and their common traits with the cat. Cats are the "pride" of the house, and the first quatrain revolves around the notions of affection and reciprocity. Stating that the cats are 'genitl', the author gives the sense of the nature of cats who are docile and affectionate domestic animals. However, the verb 'powerful' gives us a first glimpse of the cat as a wild feline. This particular style's effect is to make us aware of the cat's double character, and their duplicitous nature is also emphasized later in the poem. Verse four reverts back to emphasizing the docile nature of cats who are "cautious" and "sedentary". The rest of the poem also shows them as calm and interiorized animals ("thinking", "lying down", "s' fall asleep "...). Verse 5 shows that the love is reciprocal since the cats are "friends" of "science" and "voluptuousness" (repetition of verse 1 in reverse order: the "scholars" and the "lovers" -> chiasmus).

On close inspection, we see that there is a certain duplicity in the way Baudelaire depicts the cats after the first quatrain. The reader witnesses a shift in the poem marked even more strongly by the word Erebus, son of Chaos and Night, placed at the beginning of verse 7 and which refers to Greek mythology. One interpretation for the effect of this reference could be to emphasis the nocturnal character of the cat. Their attraction to ‘le silence’ and horror makes them inaccessible to regular people. Another interpretation could also be to highlight the ‘firete’ of cats already mentioned in verse 3 with ‘orgile’. However, the verb ‘incliner’ makes the pride seem stronger and as though the cats are so invincible that not even Erebus could enslave them.

The structure of this poesie also has the effect of emphasising the duality in the way the cats are portrayed. The quatrains seem to imprison cats in space and time with ‘season’ and ‘houses’. However, in the tercets these limits do not apply. The desert images of the ‘fine sand’ and ‘sphinx’ evokes an endless, magical space. The verb ‘semble’ to describe the cats ‘endless dream’ reinforces this idea of immortality and having no limits because nothing seems to be entirely real. It indicates that their mystery still remains and so does any ambiguity. The Sibilant alliteration in "s" in verse 11: sounds conducive to the evocation of a spell, and reinforces mystery that the second tercet develops. However, it could also again show the duplicity of cats and emphasis that appearances can be deceptive. The cats remain calm and docile,however, the magical character of cats, gradually appears in the course of the poem. The two tercets are united not only by form but by a  Lexical field of the dream and ‘magique’. The mystical and magical character of cats are emphasized in the last tercet. However, all the elements described are through “their mystical eyes,” this universe actually appears inside the cat. They see this lexical field of light with ‘sparks’ and ‘gold’ which perhaps shows that the cat has conquered the ‘darkness’ in verse 6. In this way, cats appear as a mediator between darkness and magical ideals. This is perhaps why they are described in such a duplicit way, because they seem to be the only link between the real world and an infinite and timeless world. The expression ‘vaguement’ in the last line reinforces the idea of mystery and ambiguity mentioned in line 10; ‘semblent’. This goes accordly well with the obscure description of the cats and again indicates that uncertainty remains. Perhaps there is no mystery to unravel because sometimes there has to be some sort of duplicity like the cat's character.

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