Get Drunk

Charles Baudelaire presents intoxication as a deliberate way of living under the pressure of time. The poem begins with an abrupt command and keeps returning to it, urging the reader to remain "drunk" not only on wine, but also on poetry, virtue, or anything else that can lift a person above ordinary awareness. The central problem is not morality but exhaustion: time is pictured as a force that weighs on the body and drags the spirit downward.

The poem moves from command to example to repetition. It imagines the aftermath of waking in very different places, from a palace porch to a ditch to a lonely room, suggesting that the exact setting matters less than the inner state. When sobriety returns, the world itself is asked for an answer, and wind, wave, star, bird, and clock all echo the same lesson. The final effect is both liberating and uneasy: the poem calls for ecstasy as a defense against suffering, yet it also hints that human beings are trapped in a cycle of needing that defense again and again.

Tone in Get Drunk

Baudelaire's tone is urgent, daring, and commanding, almost like a street preacher for pleasure. He sounds less interested in celebration for its own sake than in forcing a hard truth: life is heavy, time is merciless, and something must be done to resist that pressure. For the reader, the mood shifts between exhilaration and unease. The poem feels liberating because it invites excess and freedom, yet the repeated insistence on remaining intoxicated also creates a restless, slightly desperate atmosphere.

Themes in Get Drunk

• Resistance to time - The poem treats time as a crushing force and intoxication as a way to escape its pressure, even briefly.
• Ecstasy as survival - Drunkenness becomes more than pleasure; it is presented as a tool for enduring life without being spiritually flattened by it.
• Freedom from ordinary consciousness - Baudelaire values states of mind that loosen the grip of routine, self-awareness, and social convention.
• Multiplicity of intoxication - Wine is only one option among several, which broadens the idea of "drunk" into poetic, moral, and imaginative exaltation.
• Human vulnerability - The poem repeatedly reminds us that sobriety returns and that people are easily reduced, bruised, and exhausted by existence.
• Urgency and repetition - The insistent commands create the feeling that this advice is not optional but necessary to live with any dignity.

Literary Devices in Get Drunk

• Imperative mood - The poem is built from commands, which gives it the force of a manifesto or a moral challenge.
• Anaphora - Repeated phrases such as "get drunk" and "everything" intensify the rhythm and make the message feel unavoidable.
• Personification - Time is given physical power, and natural objects are made to answer the poem's question, creating a world that feels animated and responsive.
• Imagery - The palace porch, ditch, and lonely room form vivid scenes that show how intoxication can overtake any setting.
• Enumeration - Listing wind, wave, star, bird, and clock widens the poem's scope from private feeling to the whole living universe.
• Contrast - The poem contrasts elevation and abasement, ecstasy and weariness, abundance and loneliness to show the instability of human experience.
• Direct address - By speaking to the reader in the second person, the poem makes its advice immediate and confrontational.

Symbolism in Get Drunk

• Wine - A familiar form of intoxication that stands for physical pleasure and release, but not the poem's only possible answer to suffering.
• Time - The main oppressive force in the poem, symbolizing mortality, fatigue, and the slow damage of daily life.
• The clock - A concrete emblem of measured time and the inevitable return of awareness.
• The wind, wave, star, and bird - These moving or shifting elements symbolize the larger, restless world that continues beyond human control.
• Palace porch - An image of comfort and privilege that still does not free a person from the burden of time.
• Green grass of a ditch - A symbol of fall, neglect, or physical collapse, showing that intoxication can end anywhere.
• Own room - A sign of isolation and inwardness, suggesting that loneliness can be as confining as public hardship.

Historical Context of Get Drunk

Baudelaire's work belongs to nineteenth-century French modern poetry, a tradition deeply interested in urban life, psychological strain, and the clash between beauty and decay. His prose poems often reject neat, elevated lyricism in favor of compressed, provocative language that can move quickly from instruction to reflection. The poem fits his larger fascination with altered states, escape, and the tension between spiritual aspiration and bodily limitation.

It also reflects a broader Romantic and post-Romantic concern with the pressures of modern time. In this literary climate, poets frequently imagined art, imagination, or sensation as remedies for the alienation of ordinary life. Baudelaire gives that idea a sharper edge by tying it to the relentless passage of time and to the need for continual renewal rather than one-time transcendence.

Poems Similar to Get Drunk

• To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time - Robert Herrick
• A Drinking Song - William Butler Yeats
• Drinking Alone by Moonlight - Li Bai
• Song of Myself - Walt Whitman