Sorrows Of The Moon Analysis

152074 Lit 14 – Introduction to Poetry and Drama
Memory of Yesternight: Analysis of Sorrows of the Moon In Charles Baudelaire’s Sorrows of the Moon, the moon is imagined as a woman. With this attribution, the moon is given the privilege of being seen and treated as a lady throughout the poem thus referring to it as a “she” rather than an “it”. In the first two lines of the poem, This evening the moon dreams more lazily/As some fair woman, lost in cushion sleep, the moon is at once imagined as a beautiful lady about to go to sleep through the use of the associative word “As”. This association is further supported by rest of the lines of the first stanza wherein the poem used the words “hand” and “breast” which are special features of a human. In a special case, the poem defined the hand as gentle and the breast having contour or edges. Such distinct features are conventionally attributed to a lady. The poem also related the actions of dreaming and sleeping to the moon thus making it

The tear drop was also described as “where rainbow hues appear” thus it could be said that it is full of colorful memory of the moon’s appearance. In this situation, it is assumed that the poet considers the tear drop of the moon as a memory of the rare situation he witnessed with her (moon). He keeps this in his chest, near his heart, showing that he pays importance and value to such rare tear drop. He hides it from the sun which wakes the unconscious people of last night’s moment. Sorrows of the Moon by Charles Baudelaire
This evening the moon dreams more lazily;
As some fair woman, lost in cushions deep,
With gentle hand caresses listlessly
The contour of her breasts before she sleeps

On velvet backs of avalanches soft
She often lies enraptured as she dies,
And gazes on white visions aloft
Which like a blossoming to heaven