The Albatross

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1861

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

When considering the poem’s form, it is important to remember that we are reading Baudelaire in translation. The poem in the original French consists of four quatrains that have an alternating ABAB rhyme scheme. Though Baudelaire was innovative in introducing traditionally non-poetic subject matter into French poetry, his writing style was classical, even austere. He adhered to the formal rules of traditional French verse, writing in alexandrines, or lines consisting of six iambic feet (or, twelve alternating stressed and unstressed syllables). Although Baudelaire uses this meter in the original poem, translator Eli Siegel chose to forgo the rhyme scheme and alexandrine meter, instead using effects such as consonance and caesurae to emulate the musicality of Baudelaire’s French.

Siegel’s use of consonance accentuates the descriptions of the albatross. For example, the great bird has “wings in white” (Line 7), the alliterative phrase evoking the vast size and beauty of the wings. The emphatic effect contributes to the characterization of the albatross as a majestic creature while introducing musicality to the line. Likewise, in the description “how comic he is and uncomely” (Line 10), the repeated “com” sound speaks to the bird’s clumsy and cumbersome stature on the ground. Siegel’s frequent use of caesurae, or short pauses in the middle of a poetic line, also introduces a musical element to his translation. Caesuras are customary in traditional French alexandrines; here, Siegel uses them to dramatize the poem’s action. For example, in the image of “these kings of the azure, clumsy and shameful, / Let, piteously, their great wings in white, / Like oars, drag at their sides” (Lines 6-8), the frequent commas slow the reader down, breaking up rhythmic flow and mimicking the awkward gait of the bird with its ungainly wings on the ship’s deck.

Conceit

A conceit is an elaborate, extended metaphor comparing two unlikely things that illuminates the object of comparison in a surprising way. Baudelaire structures the poem as a conceit, with the comparison between the albatross and poet made explicit in the final stanza. Withholding the comparison until the final stanza generates surprise: After building the reader’s empathy for the tormented albatross, Baudelaire wants to shock readers by connecting the physical violence inflicted upon the bird and the psychological violence inflicted upon poets and artists. The comparison tests the reader’s perspective, suggesting that the harsh treatment poets receive is undeserved.

Anthropomorphism and Zoomorphism

Baudelaire ascribes human qualities to the albatross in a technique called anthropomorphism, painting the bird with a string of scathing adjectives that could otherwise be applied to an oafish person: “sluggish” (Line 3), “clumsy and shameful” (Line 6), “awkward and weak” (Line 9), and “comic […] and uncomely” (Line 10). He uses this disparaging language to show how the sailors’ actions degrade the albatross, which is otherwise a majestic creature, soaring with “great wings in white” (Line 7), one of the “vast birds of the seas” (Line 2). The personification of the bird thus reveals Baudelaire’s disgust and indignation with a society that undervalues beauty and the human spirit.

While Baudelaire makes the albatross seem human, he paints the sailors as brutish beasts. This technique might be labeled zoomorphism, or the description of humans as non-human animals. For example, one of the sailors “bothers [the albatross’s] beak with a short pipe” (Line 11) while another “limp[s]” in mockery of the terrified creature (Line 12); together, their jeering sounds like bestial “hootings” (Line 15). The men transform into wild animals, abasing themselves.