The Cycle of Depression

Tyler Lund

Pd. 1

5/26/14

final analysis

The Cycle of Depression 

When one first reads through the poem The Spleen, they might believe they have some understanding about it. It isn’t until they truly look at the meaning of the words that they will see what it is really about. By engaging in this process the reader can find out more then they imagined about the poem. When analyzing the poem, researching and interviewing is key to finding multiple aspects and different opinions.   

At first read, one might think the poem is about the description of someone who is fading away and dying. I too believed it was describing someone left to die or experiencing death. Here Baudelaire is describing a hopeless bat basically killing itself, “In which Hope like a bat/Goes beating the walls with her timid wings/and knocking her head against the rotten ceiling” (Baudelaire 5-8 ) This, when I first read it, made me think of someone on the battle field who has been left to die and the closer he gets to dyeing the more hope he losses. One can see that the bat is in the dark and all hope for the bat is lost. This is because he can’t see and he keeps hitting his limit which it the ceiling. The farther the bat goes the more he will hit his head on the ceiling further loosing hope. As I learned more about Baudelaire and did more research my opinion on the poem changed. As I read more online I began to think that instead of describing death Baudelaire is describing the cycle he goes through before getting drunk again. Throughout Charles Baudelaire’s life he was known for having alcohol and drug issues. This is why I was lead to believe what the true meaning of the poem was.   He is losing all hope, going back into depression, and planning on turning to alcohol or drugs which will make him even worse.  As I first read through the poem I did have one question about it. That was why the poem was called “Spleen?” After looking up many analyses on the poem I found out that the spleen is a symbol of fear, moral degradation, everything that is wrong with the world and other depressing things. When first leaning this I immediately thought of modernism and Kafka’s writing. In Kafka, people who did not understand the story are the ones who are what’s wrong with the world. Also, Gregor was trapped in a depressing place and this poem talks about a “humid dungeon.”  One uses the image of an insect, and one of a bat, which are both less than desirable beings.  After learning the titles meaning I realized that it related very well because it is a dark poem and shows no hope and lots of fear and depression.

            When I started this project I was excited because the last final in this class was one of the most stressful finals I have had. I knew that this would be a less stressful way to learn about literature and the concepts we have covered. I did not however anticipate that this project would show me how much I actually learned this year. When I first read the poem I knew it was a modernist poem. I truly did not think that by the end of the year I would know so much about modernism and the eras of literature. I was also surprised to find so much relation between Kafka and Baudelaire. For example, one can see how depressing and modernist this line from the poem is, “When the cold heavy sky weighs like a lid/On spirits whom eternal boredom grips, /And the wide ring of the horizon's hid/In daytime darker than the night's eclipse:” (Baudelaire 1-4) Both authors came from close to the same era and Baudelaire was heavily influenced by modernism. Another thing that I learned from this project is the different and similar opinions people can have on one poem. When I interviewed my Mom, she had a lot of the same opinions on the poem that I had but she also gave me new ideas and argued my opinions which helped me learn different ways of thinking about the poem. The last and most important thing that I learned about this project was that it takes a long time for you to truly understand a piece of literature. One can’t just read a poem and then understand the deeper meaning. They must analyze the poem and have deep conversations with other people to truly understand it. 

            I really liked the way this project was outlined and how it was our final for this class. To me this project seemed like a more guided and independent way to study a piece of literature and get the most out of it. This project had much of the same similarities with just studying a book in class. We did research to find out a little more about the author and his background much like when we researched Kafka and found out about his background. This really helps one get the deeper meaning of the poem because they can now relate the story to the life of the author. For example in Baudelaire’s poem on the third line he is taking about being trapped and taken control of. “When trawling rains have made their steel-grey fibres/Look like the grilles of some tremendous jail,/ And a whole nation of disgusting spiders/Over our brains their dusty cobwebs trail:” (Baudelaire 9-12) This relates to his life because he was known for alcohol and drug abuse and often felt trapped and depressed. Though I can see know how this is part of the poem, I would not have related it to his life if I didn’t research him. The next part of the project was much like in class when we do a Socratic seminar. We do this to get a deeper understanding of the poem and find out more about it through our peers. I did this with my teacher and found out many more things that I would never learn if I didn’t talk to her. The final analysis is much like the end of the section essay we write on the poem to show that we have a deeper understanding of it. And the presentation is to show that we have learned how to teacher and learn literature. I really liked the way this presentation was run because it showed how much I really learned this year in this class.

            As I developed a better understanding of the poem, my views on it changed. In the beginning I did not see all the aspects of the poem that I later realized.  This project made me think of many different things I have learned this year and connect ideas and authors. This has been a great class and an interesting project.