The Importance of French Litterature

Why is poetry important?

By Constantino Soto, 1ère S3

After being seduced by the romantics, and almost succumbing because of their influence, Flaubert passed his whole life criticizing poets and poetry. In his numerous correspondences with his peers, he said that “Poetry is outdated”, and Mrs. Bovary, the hero of his eponym masterpiece, dies, committing suicide, after years of unsuccessful research of “perfect love”, which she had started to look for because of reading too much poetry. It seems to me that one of the greatest authors of French literature was totally wrong, and poetry is anything but “outdated” and it is even useful. What does poetry bring to society? Why is it so important? The study of this question conducts me to distinguish two axes that partly follow separation between the form and the content: firstly, the aesthetic pleasure will be evoked, and then the reflective aspect of poetry will be presented.

The plastic and aesthetic functions of poetry appear in many ways. First of all, poetry provides pleasure to the reader because of its beauty. Who other than Heredia can better testify of a poet’s necessity to accomplish the perfection?  The poet, member of Parnassians, is only sensitive to the beauty, multiplying the use of different poetic processes, as anaphora, alliteration and allegories. Art for Art’s sake! In Les Trophées, those lost conquistadors climbing the high pyramids, full of mysteries and wonders, have made dream more than one.

Poetry can provoke a large palette of emotions. One of Lamartine’s greatest poems is Le Lac, where his nostalgia and fear of time, due to the loss of his lover, are transmitted to the reader. The flow of time and its irreversibility are evoked in the way to transform the time in an omnipotent and cruel character. It appears everywhere, for example with the extended metaphor of the water and the bird:

“Pause in your trek O Time! Pause in your flight!”

It works perfectly: you start to remember how life was better before.

But the poetry’s faculty to allow humans to escape, to dream or to get emotions is also completed by its aptitude to raise reflection. Poetry serves poets as a weapon, at the service of justice and truth. They can use their art to change and improve society. Victor Hugo, in L’enfant, denounces the horror of wars. After describing the pain and desolation of a child, struggling in the middle of his destroyed island, Hugo ends with the following answer by the child:

“What would you like? Flowers, fruits, marvelous birds?

- Friend, replies the Greek child with the clear blue eyes,

I want some bullets and a gun.”

War transforms even the tender boy.

        Some poets got even deeper in their reflections. Poetry can raise awareness concerning existential and philosophical dilemmas. In Les Fleurs du Mal, Baudelaire, whom we can perfectly call as he designed himself –a genius -, treats with an exceptional talent a large scale of deep subjects. His profound sadness, called the “Baudelairian spleen” appears in each verse, and describes the suffering of this lowly world, which is far from the Ideal. Indeed, it is the disillusionment which causes the victory of Spleen over Beauty and Love. The structure of Les Fleurs du Mal is thought by Baudelaire in a way to guide us in his descent to the Hells. Inevitably, the collection of poems ends with the series entitled La Mort. After emphasizing the harmony of the lovers, by cutting the verses with two equal hemistiches, Baudelaire presents the death as a rebirth: