It was Charles Baudelaire’s birthday on April 9. He would have been 204. Although it’s a bit late, the Clowder Press is celebrating him as one of literature’s greats who also adored cats.

See Clowder Parafeline Literary Cats for more about cats and their writers.

Baudelaire (1821-1867) was a poet, essayist and critic, but it is his poetry that still grabs us today. He was a truly modern, innovative poet, and pioneer of the symbolist style. Using rigorous traditional verse forms and romantic tropes as a framework, he focused on urban life, individual characters, the nature of emotion, the sensual, and the erotic. 

Almost all of his poetry, written from 1840 onwards, was collected in Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil). It was first published in 1857 when six of the poems were instantly banned by a French court for being immoral and sexually explicit. The controversy did Baudelaire’s reputation little harm (although he and his publisher were fined), a second edition was published in 1861, with the outcasts brought back in, and the final edition came out in 1868, a year after the poet’s death. Since then, the collection has grown in reputation and stature, and is considered a seminal poetic work of the 19th century.

The controversy was not unexpected, as Baudelaire was a born contrarian. Profligate, drunk, a dandy, a cosplay revolutionary, professional provocateur, womaniser, opium addict, trust fund kid with a penchant for decadence and the dark side, and all-round enfant terrible, Baudelaire was living the rockstar life before rockstars had been invented, if you don’t count Lord Byron (who died when Baudelaire was three).

But what about his cat factor?

He ranks high, mainly because of the three gorgeous poems in Les Fleurs du Mal that are about cats: Les Chats, Le Chat 1 and Le Chat II (he wasn’t great on titles). Only a Grandmaster Catfan could write about cats as he does. This is not the place to give you all his cat poems, but here, as a treat, is the first verse from his sonnet Le Chat I, a dreamy, languorous lost afternoon spent caressing his cat and thinking about his lover.

Viens, mon beau chat, sur mon coeur amoureux;

Retiens les griffes de ta patte,

Et laisse-moi plonger dans tes beaux yeux,

Mêlés de métal et d'agate.

Many have translated Baudelaire; this one is by Roy Campbell, from Poems of Baudelaire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)

Come, my fine cat, against my loving heart; 

Sheathe your sharp claws, and settle. 

And let my eyes into your pupils dart 

Where agate sparks with metal.

Irritatingly, we don’t know for sure if Baudelaire was owned by any specific cats, as he does not name any. We can infer their presence because, allegedly, he announced he couldn’t live with his lover, Jeanne Duval, as she didn’t like his cats, and brought her dogs into the menage. No matter, Belvedere and I think the poems are more than enough evidence for advanced ailurophobia. 

Furthermore, when visiting people owned by cats, Baudelaire would often spend his entire time communicating with the cats and ignore the people.

Obviously, he is high on the Clowder list of People who are Secretly Cats. 

Evidence

• obsessed with self-grooming,
  
• disdainful of others
  
• a stranger to self-doubt
  
• followed his own path
  

And for final proof, his friend and fellow poet, Théophile Gautier, described him, admiringly, as “a voluptuous wheedling cat with velvety manners”.

We rest our case.