L'Esprit Créateur

Abstract:

When Baudelaire's poetry is adopted by alternative musical genres, its sounds are transposed or "othered". Using a combination of close reading and digitally-enabled audio analysis, this article examines four black metal settings of Baudelaire's "Les litanies de Satan" in French and in English translation. It argues that interrelated processes of translation and text-setting in heavy metal genres produce a highly nuanced response to Baudelaire's darker or satanist poems, particularly in the way that the texts are voiced and manipulated. It seeks to advance thinking on Baudelaire's 'reach' and signal the adaptability of his poetic language to diverse types of music.