{"id":39205,"date":"2020-04-22T10:24:10","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T14:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/?p=39205"},"modified":"2020-04-22T10:46:08","modified_gmt":"2020-04-22T14:46:08","slug":"before-april-slips-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2020\/04\/before-april-slips-away.html","title":{"rendered":"Before April Slips Away"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"BAUDELAIRE<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A friend who lives deep in the French countryside was listening to the radio the other day when she heard a poem by Baudelaire, called “Avril.” She spent the entire day trying to trace it and finally emailed Radio France to ask where she could read it. The answer came\u2014”page 155 of the Oeuvres compl\u00e8tes<\/em> (\u00e9ditions Laffont, collection Bouquin, 1980)”\u2014and she forwarded it. So for all you French-speaking Baudelaireans, here ‘tiz:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AVRIL<\/strong>
Charles Baudelaire<\/em>

La muse est de retour! La campagne s\u2019allume. 
Partez, ma fantaisie; errez parmi les pr\u00e8s; 
Voici le soleil d\u2019or et les cieux sid\u00e9r\u00e9s, 
La nature s\u2019\u00e9veille et le bois se parfume. 

Le printemps, jeune oiseau, v\u00eat sa premi\u00e8re plume. 
Avril vient en chantant dans les champs diapr\u00e9s, 
Ouvrir sous un baiser les bourgeons empourpr\u00e9s, 
Et la terre en moiteur s\u2019enveloppe de brume. 

Le printemps engloutit la neige et les chagrins 
Et dispense \u00e0 chacun des jours purs et sereins 
Vous dont les rigueurs font que sur ma t\u00eate il neige, 

N'\u00eates-vous pas d'avis, belle qui d\u00e8s longtemps 
De me faire mourir avec le privil\u00e8ge, 
Qu'il serait sage et bon d'imiter le printemps? <\/strong><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Now for the kicker:<\/strong> According to the most deeply invested Baudelaire purist I know,  “It’s an open question whether Baudelaire wrote that. Usually it’s included in an appendix to his poetry, ‘Attributed to Baudelaire.’ It was published several times during Baudelaire’s lifetime under the name of his friend Privat d’Anglemont. However, another friend of theirs claimed that Baudelaire wrote it and published it under Privat’s name as a joke. Personally I think it’s too crappy a poem to be by Baudelaire. It has a pastiche feel to it and lacks the mineral quality of Baudelaire’s tone. If Baudelaire published it under Privat\u2019s name, it was because he knew it was inferior and needed the money.” Well!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile yet another friend found a poem on the same theme by G\u00e9rard de Nerval with the same title. It was “a busy day well worth it,” he writes, and sent the poem along like so:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A friend who lives deep in the French countryside was listening to the radio the other day when she heard a poem by Baudelaire, called \u201cAvril.\u201d She spent the entire day trying to trace it and finally emailed Radio France to ask where she could read it. The answer came. But there’s a surprising kicker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":13231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26,18,4,23,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-39205","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"category-literature","9":"category-main","10":"category-news","11":"category-political-culture","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/BAUDELAIRE-etching-l-irremediable-1977-baudelaire-etching.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-acl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39205"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39236,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39205\/revisions\/39236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}