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The artificial paradises - Charles Baudelaire

Author: Charles Baudelaire
Editions: Gallimard
Collection: Folio classic
Version: New Revised Edition
Introduction: Claude Pichois
date: June 1972
Number of pages: 275 p.
Cover: Ingres. The odalisque with slave (detail). The Walter Art Gallery, Baltimore. Photo: Artephot-A. Held

Note: Pichois Claude explains in his introduction that the literature has always counted among its contributors followers of artificial paradises from Paris to Vienna. If Baudelaire's text is preceded articles Theophile Gautier, he explains it, "to make them more sensitive greatness of Baudelaire. From this comparison, this confrontation has to clear the profound originality of artificial paradise and even the first pencil of this book: From the wine and hashish, the series of articles on the contribution which opens Baudelaire. "p.8. In this edition, The Artificial Paradise are preceded by the following three texts by Théophile Gautier:

• The opium pipe: This text tells an experience shared by Theophile Gautier in a plug of opium. In his hallucinations his sense of well-being or to his anguish, the famous novelist shares his journey through the acrid smoke of opium.

• Hashish: This psychotropic substance reduced by Orientalists is tested for the first time by Theophile Gautier at a meeting for this purpose . Consumed in the form of a greenish paste sprinkled with Arabic coffee before the meal, hashish provque with the author of states of well-being that alternate with hallucinations and anxiety.

• The club Hachichins : The hashish was once the means used by the prince of the assassins to submit his subordinates. This term is inspired by " Hachichins, hashish eater, assassins root of the word, whose meaning is perfectly applicable to the fierce bloodthirsty habits of the old cronies of the mountain ." p.53-54. Violent hallucinations are caused and the writer does not control the states of euphoria, sadness or anxiety caused by the effects of green jam. Transformed into an elephant a few moments, Gautier eventually vanish before being awakened by conversations absurd when it comes to death and time stops ... ( " I felt a terrible sadness, because, putting his hand on my head, I found it open, and I lost consciousness ." P.71)

experiments psychotropic the two authors differ and it is found that Charles Baudelaire keeps a retracted position relative to the dangers of sweet reverie induced by the absorption of hashish and opium. Before going into the details of artificial paradise, below is a brief overview of his article:

• wine and hashish compared as means of propagating the individuality Baudelaire compares in this section the effects caused by the absorption respectively wine and hashish. Both substances are in his view means multiplication of individuality. It seems clear that his preference goes to the wine. " they are great shows in the wine, illuminated by the sun indoors! She is real hot and the second youth that man draws in him! But how are formidable as its pleasures and its devastating sequences annoying. "P.80. The virtues of wine are his supporters so much that he even says that negative" a man who drinks only water has a secret to hide from his fellow men. "p.84. For him, wine is the essence of human action while conversely, the hashish is unfit for action.

• Artificial Paradises: Illustrating his argument by poisoning of various people, Baudelaire describes in this paper the effects caused by the wine, opium and hashish. He dwells at length on the case of Thomas De Quincey , became an opium addict because of the words he was treating stomach by opium (read about it Confessions of an English opium addict De Quincey) . We find in this text a development of the previously presented item. The presentation of dawanesk ("mixed extracts, sugar and various flavorings such as vanilla, cinnamon, pistachio, almond, musk. Sometimes even, we add a bit of English fly for a purpose that has nothing in common with the ordinary results of hashish. (...) We can take a dose 14, 20, 30 grams, wrapped in a piece of bread to sing, or in a coffee cup. "p.116) through that of hashish or of the effects of opium, artificial paradises are composed of disparate texts written at different periods.

" I want to prove that researchers are doing their paradise hell, preparing the dig with a success that the prediction may be frightened ". Baudelaire.

The three texts havens have been met by Baudelaire and published in various editions. This edition ends with Exordium and notes for lectures (Brussels) . Read these texts more than 150 years after their publication does not deprive them of their strength: the issue of psychotropic drugs remains the same today, but in hindsight, one might find this text a bit naive. Certainly, the hashish is dangerous, but from there to praise the wine, there's a big difference. We have long known the devastation caused by alcohol and can not read without a smile the pitch Baudelaire. I liked the passage where the author speaks to men in the name of the wine ( "I will fall to the bottom of your chest like a ragweed plant. I'll be the grain that fertilizes the furrow dug painfully. Our intimate meeting will poetry. Between us, we'd be God, and flit to infinity, like birds, butterflies, son of the Virgin, perfume and all things winged. " p.82). If one keeps in mind that the use of hashish at the time was a fashion newly imported into Europe, we can excuse this ingenuity especially as the recommended mode of absorption caused Violent hallucinations and panic attacks and fatigue powerful. Note, however, that Baudelaire is more state observations that a real experience: it has indeed untested uses of hashish and only see the known cases of his entourage. Artificial paradises caused by various drugs, it seems that the effects of alcohol are not really comparable to those of hashish and opium: it is true as shown by Baudelaire, that alcohol and inhibitions the hashish introverted, it is noteworthy that the two practices n'emmènent not the consumer to the same shores. In addition, essays gathered here, though paying tribute to the imaginative and poetic writing of Baudelaire, sometimes duplication. But it raises another question, namely that the editorial policy. So I found havens interesting but nothing that seems significant in relation to the topic. We therefore understand that I do not agree with Philippe Pichois which finds that the texts of Gautier make them more sensitive to Baudelaire. In fact, what I was looking through reading this book was the experimental side experienced by the author that better describes Gautier Baudelaire ...


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