Decadence

Decadence is a style that Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) wore proudly to express his hostility regarding a world falling into abyss. To this symbolist poet, decadence draws a picture of a declining life, a life that is not filled with colorful hope or spontaneous, gleeful feelings. Rather, it is a life which is best described through naked myths and rotting corpses that delicate souls reject as unacceptable or repugnant. Baudelaires morbidity is not a weakness, but it is strength since he succeeds in detaching himself from a hypocrite nation in order to explore its decadent reality through appealing poetry (Eliot 376). The significance of decadence in his poetry does not lie in a shallow perverse creativity from his part; it lies in his daring view of what the world has become. Baudelaire could not remain a sheep in a herd, bound to follow blindly a morality that ceased to be authentic. He would have strived to see the fake modern life burn in front of him, not because he is a misanthrope, but because it is the price to be paid to resurrect life. Indeed, it is only after reducing a corrupt modernity to ashes that is possible to renew life, such as a Phoenix raises from the ashes of his predecessor (Guyaux 109). However, the world changes to the worse but never to a complete destruction. Consequently, it cannot experience a real resurrection. Hence, Baudelaire deems decadence to be an attractive device to express the state of a decaying world where the hope for a un monde nouveau is never achieved.