The Albatross

Baudelaire structures “The Albatross” as an extended metaphor, or a conceit, comparing poets to a captured and persecuted albatross. Given the poem’s concern with the role of the poet in society, the poem might be considered a work of ars poetica, or a poem that reflexively meditates on the art of poetry. However, the poem goes beyond a simple statement of Baudelaire’s aesthetics by presenting a moral critique of society’s subjugation of poets and, more broadly, of the poetic imagination. By illustrating the albatross’s harsh treatment at the hands of crude sailors, Baudelaire shows how the bourgeois public denigrates those who view the world differently.

The poem opens with an image of ennui, or bored listlessness, which Baudelaire viewed as the prime motivator of evil. The sailors of a ship seek “to amuse themselves” by “Lay[ing] hold of the albatross,” a diversion that they partake in “Often” (Lines 1-2). Baudelaire shows that their habitual capture of the great oceanic bird arises simply out of a desire for entertainment, painting their pastime as sadistic, a banal act of evil committed with nonchalance. The sky-bound albatross and the seafaring “men of the crew” clearly occupy different worlds (Line 1), but Baudelaire is interested in exploring their forced collision.