The Albatross

The poem reflects Baudelaire’s concern for the fate of the poet (or more generally, any individual with an artistic temperament). The albatross’s brutal mistreatment at the hands of the sailors is a metaphor for the poet’s plight in a society that fails to understand him and actively berates and mocks his unique gifts. By creating this elaborate image of the poet’s struggle to retain his dignity in the face of society’s cruelty, Baudelaire reveals the poet as a hopelessly alienated figure who nonetheless possesses incredible beauty and strength.

Baudelaire depicts the humiliation and degradation of the poet through the sailors’ sadistic game of capturing the albatross simply “to amuse themselves,” a cruel diversion they engage in “Often” (Line 1). By emphasizing the habitual, thoughtless nature of this activity, Baudelaire reveals the poet’s debasement to be routine and pervasive. The unfeeling sailors, who ruthlessly mock the high-flying “kings of the azure” (Line 6), are stand-ins for the indiscriminate, uneducated bourgeois mob, whom Baudelaire viewed as insensitive to the higher aims of art. For Baudelaire, who was deeply concerned with art’s role in society as both a poet and a critic, the poet occupies a confrontational, combative role.