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Chapter Five - Looking for Lodging
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Chapter Five Looking for Lodging While Satire V focuses on the domain of the aristocrat, la Cour, the following poem shifts our attention to la Ville. 1 Although presided over by theĀ· godlike, exemplary King, the court is a perilous environment, full of fraudulent nobles who defile the glorious tradition of France's distinguished families. In Satire VI the speaker directs his satirical gaze toward the ville, where he sees yet another dangerous locale, replete with obstacles that threaten to distract and eventually overthrow the contemplative person who attempts to penetrate the veils obscuring human folly. On the associative level, the concept of locale establishes a dialectical link between Satires V and VI. As a human creation , Paris offers rich inspiration to the satirist poet (cf. Satire I), yet has the power to disrupt and destroy his creativity. Boileau will return to the leitmotif of the corrupt city in Satire VIII. Satire VI is a monologue in which the speaker recounts his inability to sleep or to move about, his numerous brushes with death, his alienation, within a twenty-four hour period. The disgruntled speaker concludes his list of woes with bitter reflections on his miserable existence as contrasted with the comfort of the rich, who can buy rest, security, and calm in a noisy, dangerous, unsightly, and corrupt Paris. Traditionally dubbed l'embarras de Paris, the poem imitates structural elements common in Latin formal verse satire. Like Juvenal's Satire Ill, the piece shares elements of the Bionean diatribe, Le., sharp in tone, informal, conversational, employing personal anecdotes, while implicitly addressing an imaginary second party.2 Boileau employs many Juvenalian themes-the threat of fire and the subsequent pulling down of houses (v. 7 and vv. 193 ff. in Juvenal; vv. 104 ff. in Boileau); the notion that only the rich can sleep in the city (vv. 232-35 in Juvenal; 71 Chapter Five vv. 116-24 in Boileau); the filth, dangerous traffic, and noise of the city streets, especially the noise as an impediment to sleep (vv. 235-61 in Juvenal; vv. 17-26 and vv. 30 ff. in Boileau); and the ubiquity of nocturnal thieves and murderers in the city (vv. 278 ff. in Juvenal; vv. 87 ff. in Boileau). In Boileau's poem, these images converge to form a thematic structure wholly different from that ofJuvenal's piece. Whereas Juvenal's vituperative speaker attacks the corruption of Roman society and the influx of foreigners while lamenting the passing of the good old days (reminiscent of Damon in Satire I), Boileau's speaker focuses on Paris as an obstacle to his creative powers.3 Juvenal's poem, while undoubtedly supplying some of the themes upon which the French poem's metaphors are based, does not match the metaphorical complexity and coherence of Boileau's poem. The Latin poem presents the complaints of a Roman eager to leave a corrupt, superficial, and dangerous society. The poem's language centers on surface effect: the trappings of the rich, the hypocrisy of the hated Greeks, and the affected poverty of numerous social climbers. Images of penetration and immobility , which form the metaphorical fabric of Boileau's poem, are not used systematically in Juvenal. In the first section of the poem (vv. 1-14), the speaker describes the lugubrious nocturnal discord that renders sleep impossible: Qui frappe l'air, bon Dieu! de ees lugubres eris? Est-ee done pour veiller qu'on se couche aParis? Et quel facheux Demon durant les nuits entieres, Rassemble ici les chats de toutes les goutieres? J'ai beau sauter du lit plein de trouble et d'effroi, Je pense qu'avec eux tout l'Enfer est chez moi. (vv. 1-6) Sleep, as symbol of literal and figurative regeneration, representing one of the fundamental acts of life, offers a sharp contrast to the speaker's unnatural assailants: he refers to the "facheux Demon" (v. 3), "chats" (v. 4, traditional symbols of the mysterious and the supernatural), and "l'Enfer" (v. 6), all of which, apparently, have joined forces to bedevil their hapless victim. The poem's second word, "frappe," suggests that the speaker, in a helpless prone position, is the object of a physical 72 [3.83.32.226] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 10:10 GMT) Looking for Lodging attack. In the mind of the speaker, the nocturnal cacophony has taken on a physical presence and has penetrated the walls of his lodging (v. 6). The external attack represents an allied effort : traditional enemies...