In Greek mythology, Maenads were the female followers of Dionysus, the god of winemaking and ecstasy. Dowson cultivated the ecstasy of alcohol, while his love life was split between a platonic devotion for little girls and purely sensual affairs with adult women, often prostitutes met in bars. In this poem, he contrasts the pleasures of wine and women with the virginal beauty of young girls. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
My second choice from Myrtle, Rue and Cypress (1883), Stenbock’s second collection of verses, is a poem in the spirit of carpe diem, honouring love, youth and wine. Here he joins Baudelaire, who also extolled wine and drunkenness, and indeed both authors experienced the pleasures of alcohol and drugs. As in many of Stenbock’s poems, the gender of the beloved young person is left unknown, but it was most probably a boy. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Baudelaire publia en 1851 le court essai Du vin et du haschisch, comparés comme moyens de multiplication de l’individualité, qui étudie les effets des deux drogues sur la personnalité, le comportement et l’inspiration. Plusieurs éditions l’incluent dans Les Paradis artificiels, bien qu’il n’en fasse pas partie. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
