Cf. Baudelaire: by T. S. Eliot: Summary, Meaning & Analysis
This early short poem by T.
This early short poem by T. S. Eliot directly references Charles Baudelaire, the French poet who transformed urban ugliness and spiritual decay into art. By using the comparison ("Cf." is Latin for "compare"), Eliot positions himself alongside Baudelaire's view of the modern city as a site of boredom, sin, and concealed beauty. It's Eliot declaring his poetic lineage — effectively saying, "consider what Baudelaire observed, and now consider what I observe."
Tone & mood
The tone is wry and self-aware, infused with a sense of genuine longing. Eliot isn’t just imitating Baudelaire — he’s holding himself up to him, and the poem reflects the subtle melancholy of a writer aware he’s crafting his work in someone else's shadow. The title itself carries a dry, almost ironic quality: "Cf." is a notation used by scholars, and using it as a poem's title adds a touch of humor about literary influence, almost like a footnote.
Symbols & metaphors
- The golden foot — An image of unattainable beauty. It evokes religious iconography, like kissing the foot of a saint or idol, as well as Baudelaire's elusive feminine ideals, hinting at both spiritual and erotic desires that remain unfulfilled.
- Lunar incantations — The moon in Symbolist poetry represents cold, artificial, or melancholic beauty, contrasting with the warmth and clarity of the sun. Incantations hint at a ritual that may fail, embodying a magic that's more about desperation than real power.
- Dissolving floors — Memory as unstable ground. This image embodies the Baudelairean and later Modernist view that the past doesn’t offer a reliable base — it constantly shifts and fades away under the pressures of the present.
- Borrowed shapes — The modern poet embodies a fragmented, borrowed self. Eliot suggests that in the modern city, identity isn't something we're born with; it's something we create. The poet's role is to navigate various masks instead of expressing a single, authentic voice.
Historical context
T. S. Eliot penned this poem during his early years, probably between 1909 and 1911, while he was a Harvard student captivated by French Symbolist poetry. He had come across Baudelaire's *Les Fleurs du Mal* and Jules Laforgue's ironic works, both of which significantly influenced his emerging style. The title "Cf. Baudelaire" clearly connects the poem to the French poet, who was the first to take the modern city — with its crowds, grime, and transient beauty — as serious subjects for lyric poetry. Eliot would later engage with Baudelaire so deeply that his influence resonates throughout *The Waste Land* (1922) and *The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock* (1915). This poem serves as Eliot's way of reflecting on his own poetic roots, recognizing his influences while exploring how he can reshape what he's inherited into something fresh.
FAQ
'Cf.' is short for the Latin *confer*, which translates to 'compare.' Scholars use this notation in footnotes to suggest that readers should look at another source in relation to their argument. By choosing it as a poem title, Eliot makes a deliberate, slightly ironic choice—he presents the entire poem as a footnote to Baudelaire, embodying both humility and a quiet confidence.
Baudelaire was the first significant poet to focus on the modern city — its ugliness, its crowds, and its moral ambiguity — as the main theme of serious lyric poetry. Eliot, aiming to depict contemporary urban life without glossing over its harsh realities, saw Baudelaire as evidence that this approach was possible. Eliot referred to him as 'the greatest exemplar in modern poetry in any language.'
Yes. Eliot's early poems contain numerous literary references, vivid urban imagery, and a speaker who feels disconnected and unable to take action or form connections. The ironic choice of a scholarly notation for a title is typical; Eliot frequently concealed genuine emotion behind intellectual displays.
It hovers in that space between desire and acceptance. The speaker yearns for something — beauty, connection, a solid sense of self — but it always feels just beyond their grasp. Yet, there's a sharp humor in the situation that prevents it from being entirely sorrowful.
Many of the same concerns appear here in a smaller form: the fragmented self, the city as a site of spiritual emptiness, the use of literary allusion as a structural device, and a direct connection to Baudelaire. *The Waste Land* even directly quotes Baudelaire's preface to *Les Fleurs du Mal*. This early poem serves as a sketch for ideas that Eliot would later expand upon on a much larger scale.
It's an image of something beautiful and sacred that the speaker feels they cannot touch or own. It references the tradition of kissing the foot of a religious statue or a monarch—an act of devotion to something greater than yourself. Eliot uses this to express the feeling of being near beauty or transcendence while being forever kept out of reach.
Not exactly, though romantic longing plays a role. It's really about the deeper desire for beauty, meaning, and connection in a modern world that often denies all three. Baudelaire's poetry mixes the erotic with the spiritual in this way, and Eliot is following that same path.
What connected them was a mutual feeling that modern life lacked spiritual depth, and that a poet's role was to confront this truth instead of ignoring it. While Baudelaire's Paris and Eliot's London were distinct cities, both poets experienced a similar sense of alienation. Eliot also appreciated Baudelaire's technical skill — how he transformed even the most unpleasant or sordid subjects into beautifully structured verse.