Flowers of Evil and Other Works: A Dual-Language Book

Charles Baudelaire

मार्च 2013 · Courier Corporation

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When Flowers of Evil was first published in 1857, the book almost immediately became the subject of an obscenity trial, and for several generations afterward its themes of eroticism, lesbianism, revolt and decay earned the author a reputation for depravity and morbidity. It was not until 1949 that the French courts removed the ban originally imposed on Baudelaire's masterpiece.
Today, Flowers of Evil is regarded as the poet's greatest work and perhaps the most influential book of French poetry ever written. In assessing Baudelaire's importance in literature, Wallace Fowlie, distinguished scholar, critic and Baudelaire specialist, describes him as "the poet and thinker of our age, of what we like to call modernity."
This handsome dual-language edition combines Flowers of Evil with a selection of the poet's other significant compositions, including prose poems from Spleen of Paris, a poignant collection reflecting Baudelaire's pessimism towards the teeming city and his compassion for its less successful inhabitants. Readers will also find critical essays on art, music and literature, including a discussion of Edgar Allan Poe's poetry; and Baudelaire's personal letters to his mother and female acquaintances. Edited and translated by Professor Fowlie, this authoritative edition contains excellent line-by-line English translations with the original French text on the facing pages.
Students of French language and literature as well as poetry lovers with some knowledge of French will welcome this volume by one of the greatest European poets of the 19th century.

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Charles Baudelaire, 1821 - 1867 Charles Baudelaire had perhaps had an immeasurable impact on modern poetry. He was born on April 9, 1821, to Joseph-Francois Baudelaire and Caroline Archimbaut Dufays in Paris. He was educated first at a military boarding school and then the College Louis-le-Grand, where he was later expelled in 1839. Baudelaire then began to study law, at the Ecole de Droit in Paris, but devoted most of his time to debauchery. After an abortive trip to the East, he settled in Paris and lived on an inheritance from his much despised step father, while he wrote poetry. During this period he met Jeanne Duval, a mulatto with whom he fell in love with and who became the "Black Venus," the muse behind some of his most powerful erotic verse. Baudelaire strove to portray sensual experiences and moods through complex imagery and classical form, avoiding sentimentality and objective description. Thus he profoundly influenced the later French symbolist writers, including Mallarme and Rimbaud, and such English-language poets as Yeats, Eliot, and Stevens. With much of his inheritance squandered, Baudelaire turned to journalism, especially art and literary criticism, the first of which were "Les Salons". Here he discovered the work of Edgar Allan Poe, which became an influence on his own poetry. While continuing to write unpublished verse, Baudelaire became famous as critic and translator of Poe. This reputation enabled Baudelaire to publish his most famous collection of poetry, "Les Fleurs du Mal" (The Flowers of Evil) in 1857. The result was an obscenity trial and the banning of six of the poems. Though he continued to write journalism with some success, he became increasingly depressed and pessimistic. Baudelaire attempted suicide in 1845, an attempt to get attention, and became minorly involved in the French Revolution. Today Baudelaire's work is considered the "last brilliant summation of romanticism, precursor of symbolism and the first expression of modern techniques". It was his originality that set him apart and ultimately proved to be his end. Baudelaire died, apparently from complications of syphilis, on August 31, 1867, in Paris.