Charles Baudelaire: Poems
Be drunk
Who do you think is the persona in the poem?
Who do you think is the persona in the poem?
Do you mean the persona of the speaker in the poem?
Yes
The speaker's persona seems introspective and existential. Baudelaire asserts that one must be continually drunk without pause both in a literal and metaphorical sense. You can “take your pick”: become drunk “on wine”, or drunk “on poetry, on virtue.” The speaker seems happy to be imparting information about man's eternal struggle with time and the inevitable labours of life.