Autumn, Charles Baudlaire

Poet:
Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who lived from 1821 to 1867. He was educated in Lyon, and was one of the major innovators in French literature. He was a slow and fastidious worker who expressed the changing in nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris in the 19th century.  

Autumn Poem

Speaker:
-This speaker, in second person, must be telling a personal story, or something that has happened to him in life.

Imagery:
-Soon we will plunge ourselves into cold shadows(Feel). The speaker feels him/herself, giving up.
-Falling on the cobblestones and the lawn(Feel).
-I shiver as I listen to each log crash and slam(Feel,Hear). The speaker is cold,and frail. He/she seems to be in some type of storm in which they might it make it out.
-The echoes are as dull as executioners' drums(Hear). The echoes represent the speaker being alone, he can hear himself. Or this could represent the noise from the "storm" where the speaker hears "each log crash and slam".
-Echoes of departure keep resounding in the air(Hear). This could represent abandonment, or the storm going away.

Figurative Language:
-My soul will harden into a block of red ice(Metaphor,Symbolism). Red could symbolize autumn colors, and "harden into a block of ice" could be symbolic to isolation from autumn. In this metaphor the speaker compares their soul to a block of red ice.
-My mind is like a tower that slowly succumbs(Simile). The speaker compares his mind to a tower that is slowly falling, as if his mind was possibly giving out, or no longer functioning.

Tone:
-The tone of this poem is somber. Its very dark and dull. The purpose or meaning isn't as clear but from different perspectives there could be different meanings.

Theme:
-Autumn is a beautiful season, but to this speaker it brings dark and depressing times in his/her life.

~Other Aspects~
*Rhyme:
-The speaker rhymes every other line.\
*Consonance:
-Summers Stunning
-Winter will
-Slowly succumbs
-It seems to me, swaying to these shocks, that someone is nailing down a coffin in a hurry somewhere.
*Form:
-The poem has 4 lines for every 1 stanza and 4 stanzas total.