Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"Exotic Perfume" by Charles Baudelaire serves as a sensuous evocation of an imagined, idyllic world, conjured through the intoxicating scent emanating from a loved one's breast. This short but evocative poem encapsulates Baudelaire's fascination with synesthesia, the crossing of senses, where a smell evokes vivid landscapes. The poem is an escapade, transporting both the speaker and the reader to a distant, utopian shore that serves as a foil to mundane reality.

The poem commences with a domestic setting; the speaker inhales the aroma from a "warm breast" in "autumn twilight dim." This seemingly intimate moment transcends its bounds, leading the speaker into "That happy shore where everlastingly / The sun smites downward from his burning rim." Baudelaire's specific use of "smite" accentuates the invigorating, perhaps even violent, effect of the sun, which never ceases its bright dominance over this perfect world.

Within this imaginary land, Nature indulges her caprices, birthing "many a strange and sweetly burdened tree." The presence of strange flora adds a surreal, almost fantastical layer to the setting. Inhabitants of this exotic place are free-spirited, their eyes candid and bodies exposed. The men are "sinewy and slim," suggesting an Edenic existence free of modern-day anxieties and excesses.

Baudelaire employs a compelling blend of sensory impressions to construct this paradise. The scent of the beloved's body, so intimately encountered, becomes the axis upon which this imaginary world spins. This complex intermingling of senses enables the speaker to feel transported: "Thine odour bears me to that blesséd zone." It is the perfume that is the vehicle, not just a trigger for daydreams but a literal means of travel to an ethereal realm.

As the poem reaches its conclusion, the imagery shifts to maritime scenes. The sails on ships are "limp" and "weary," implying that even in this utopia, there exists a sense of eternal rest after arduous journeys. "The perfume of green tamarinds is blown / About my nostrils," Baudelaire notes, incorporating yet another scent into his tapestry of sensory experience. The fragrance melds with "voices of the sailors as they sing," implying that smell, sound, and sight combine to form a single, enchanting spectacle.

"Exotic Perfume" articulates more than just a yearning for escape; it embodies the desire to dissolve boundaries-between senses, between people, between the prosaic and the extraordinary. This poem also reflects the cultural milieu of 19th-century France, when the "exotic" was both romanticized and sought after as an antidote to industrialization and social rigidity. The poem, thus, becomes a journey to an internal landscape, prompted by an olfactory stimulus but enriched by the human longing for a paradise lost-or perhaps a paradise never truly known but felt in the soul's most fervent imaginings.

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