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The Flowers of Evil
The Flowers of Evil, which T.S. Eliot called the greatest example of modern poetry in any language, shocked the literary world of nineteenth century France with its outspoken portrayal of lesbian love, its linking of sexuality and death, its unremitting irony, and its unflinching celebration of the seamy side of urban life. Including the French texts and comprehensive explanatory notes to the poems, this extraordinary body of love poems restores the six poems originally banned in 1857, revealing the richness and variety of the collection.
399 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published August 23, 1857
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About the author
Charles Baudelaire
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Les fleurs du mal
(1857), obscene only volume of French writer, translator, and critic Charles Pierre Baudelaire; expanded in 1861, it exerted an enormous influence over later symbolist and modernist poets.
Reputation of Charles Pierre Baudelaire rests primarily on perhaps the most important literary art collection, published in Europe in the 19th century. Similarly, his early experiment Petits po猫mes en prose (1868) ( Little Prose Poems ) most succeeded and innovated of the time.
From financial disaster to prosecution for blasphemy, drama and strife filled life of known Baudelaire with highly controversial and often dark tales of Edgar Allan Poe. Long after his death, his name represents depravity and vice. He seemingly speaks directly to the 20th century civilization.
Reputation of Charles Pierre Baudelaire rests primarily on perhaps the most important literary art collection, published in Europe in the 19th century. Similarly, his early experiment Petits po猫mes en prose (1868) ( Little Prose Poems ) most succeeded and innovated of the time.
From financial disaster to prosecution for blasphemy, drama and strife filled life of known Baudelaire with highly controversial and often dark tales of Edgar Allan Poe. Long after his death, his name represents depravity and vice. He seemingly speaks directly to the 20th century civilization.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 3,018 reviews
March 5, 2024
It is the only book of poetry that has had such a lasting effect on me. It is a monument unlike any other.
When I immerse myself in it, I feel the sensations of a descent into catacombs and those of a mystical elevation. Then, weeks later, still, echo in my ears in deep echoes the dizzying verses of "Harmonie du Soir":
芦Valse m茅lancolique et langoureux vertige !
摆鈥
Le soleil s'est noy茅 dans son sang qui se fige.禄
This poem will always make me shiver with indescribable and exhilarating ecstasy.
Painter of passions with underground vibrations and sublime disenchantment, Baudelaire is parred excellence the alchemist of despair. In the crucible of his soul, gravity and lightness intermingle in a subtle and skillful dosage. A secret solemnity swirls like curls of smoke throughout these pages simultaneously as the restrained animality scolds, shaking its chains. The deep cries of revolt and the despair that rise from these refined stanzas give them a blackness of a particular brilliance so fascinating and frightening.
He was a humiliated being who did not have a life, it is said, to the extent of his genius. But would he have given birth to this work if he had lived another life? He would not have had the pain, the "mud", essential for any artist worthy of the name to produce a noble work and to want to embrace the universal in transcendence:
芦Soyez b茅ni, mon Dieu, qui donnez la souffrance
Comme un divin rem猫de 脿 nos impuret茅s 摆鈥
Je sais que vous gardez une place au Po猫te
Dans les rangs bienheureux des saintes L茅gions, 摆鈥
Je sais que la douleur est la noblesse unique 摆鈥
Imposer tous les temps et tous les univers.禄
叠茅苍茅诲颈肠迟颈辞苍
The height, depth, and expansive views are impossible to sum up here. They are horrible and beautiful, dark and bright, contradictory and valid. They are all the tendencies and aspirations that pull and tear the human being on the high altar of life. This book is like the dissection table of the poet's soul on which we lean to recognize ourselves with concern and excitement, both happy and repulsed.
Baudelaire is the great poet of the 19th century and much more: he is the poet who best knew how to express this perception of "摆鈥longs 茅chos qui de loin se confondent/ Dans une t茅n茅breuse et profonde unit茅" where "Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se r茅pondent". He eclipses all the others for me. He imposed himself in all the power of his quest for sublimation. He achieved what so many before and after have only glimpsed: he "descended" deep into himself and observed and enjoyed his complete and entire nature. He cultivated the contrasts and reconciled the extremes. He synthesized it.
When I immerse myself in it, I feel the sensations of a descent into catacombs and those of a mystical elevation. Then, weeks later, still, echo in my ears in deep echoes the dizzying verses of "Harmonie du Soir":
芦Valse m茅lancolique et langoureux vertige !
摆鈥
Le soleil s'est noy茅 dans son sang qui se fige.禄
This poem will always make me shiver with indescribable and exhilarating ecstasy.
Painter of passions with underground vibrations and sublime disenchantment, Baudelaire is parred excellence the alchemist of despair. In the crucible of his soul, gravity and lightness intermingle in a subtle and skillful dosage. A secret solemnity swirls like curls of smoke throughout these pages simultaneously as the restrained animality scolds, shaking its chains. The deep cries of revolt and the despair that rise from these refined stanzas give them a blackness of a particular brilliance so fascinating and frightening.
He was a humiliated being who did not have a life, it is said, to the extent of his genius. But would he have given birth to this work if he had lived another life? He would not have had the pain, the "mud", essential for any artist worthy of the name to produce a noble work and to want to embrace the universal in transcendence:
芦Soyez b茅ni, mon Dieu, qui donnez la souffrance
Comme un divin rem猫de 脿 nos impuret茅s 摆鈥
Je sais que vous gardez une place au Po猫te
Dans les rangs bienheureux des saintes L茅gions, 摆鈥
Je sais que la douleur est la noblesse unique 摆鈥
Imposer tous les temps et tous les univers.禄
叠茅苍茅诲颈肠迟颈辞苍
The height, depth, and expansive views are impossible to sum up here. They are horrible and beautiful, dark and bright, contradictory and valid. They are all the tendencies and aspirations that pull and tear the human being on the high altar of life. This book is like the dissection table of the poet's soul on which we lean to recognize ourselves with concern and excitement, both happy and repulsed.
Baudelaire is the great poet of the 19th century and much more: he is the poet who best knew how to express this perception of "摆鈥longs 茅chos qui de loin se confondent/ Dans une t茅n茅breuse et profonde unit茅" where "Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se r茅pondent". He eclipses all the others for me. He imposed himself in all the power of his quest for sublimation. He achieved what so many before and after have only glimpsed: he "descended" deep into himself and observed and enjoyed his complete and entire nature. He cultivated the contrasts and reconciled the extremes. He synthesized it.
January 18, 2008
After reading Baudelaire, I suddenly find myself wanting to smoke cigarettes and say very cynical things while donning a trendy haircut. Plus, if I didn't read Baudelaire, how could I possibly carry on conversations with pretentious art students?
In all seriousness, though, I wish my French was better, so that I could read it in its intended language. I'm sure it looses something in the translation... but it's still great stuff nonetheless.
And with a title like "Flowers of Evil," how can you go wrong?
In all seriousness, though, I wish my French was better, so that I could read it in its intended language. I'm sure it looses something in the translation... but it's still great stuff nonetheless.
And with a title like "Flowers of Evil," how can you go wrong?
March 16, 2024
鈥淎nd the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.鈥� Genesis 3:4-5
Ever since the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge had been eaten any cognizance became an attribute of evil. So to read books in order to widen one鈥檚 horizons means to sign a pact with the devil鈥�
And of course the poets, who manage to pack their words in the most seductive opuses, are the worst of tempters鈥�
So when the poet unsheathes his stylus and applies it to vellum the flowers of evil effloresce鈥�
Such are the poet鈥檚 morose ideals:
But when poets die their poems continue to live鈥�
鈥淐onsider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin鈥︹€� Matthew 6:28
Ever since the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge had been eaten any cognizance became an attribute of evil. So to read books in order to widen one鈥檚 horizons means to sign a pact with the devil鈥�
Pillowed on evil, Satan Trismegist
Ceaselessly cradles our enchanted mind,
The flawless metal of our will we find
Volatilized by this rare alchemist.
The Devil holds the puppet threads; and swayed
By noisome things and their repugnant spell,
Daily we take one further step toward Hell,
Suffering no horror in the olid shade.
And of course the poets, who manage to pack their words in the most seductive opuses, are the worst of tempters鈥�
When by an edict of the powers supreme
A poet鈥檚 born into this world鈥檚 drab space,
His mother starts, in horror, to blaspheme
Clenching her fists at God, who grants her grace.
So when the poet unsheathes his stylus and applies it to vellum the flowers of evil effloresce鈥�
Such are the poet鈥檚 morose ideals:
What my heart, deep as an abyss, demands,
Lady Macbeth, is your brave bloody hands,
And, Aeschylus, your dreams of rage and fright,
Or you, vast Night, daughter of Angelo鈥檚,
Who peacefully twist into a strange pose
Charms fashioned for a Titan鈥檚 mouth to bite.
But when poets die their poems continue to live鈥�
Then, O my beauty, tell the insatiate worm
Who wastes you with his kiss,
I have kept the godlike essence and the form
Of perishable bliss!
鈥淐onsider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin鈥︹€� Matthew 6:28
November 13, 2021
Les Fleurs du mal = The Flowers of Evil, Charles Baudelaire
The Flowers of Evil is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire. First published in 1857, it was important in the symbolism and modernist movements. The poems deal with themes relating to decadence and eroticism.
its unremitting irony, and its unflinching celebration of the seamy side of urban life. It is fair to say that with his masterful poetry Baudelaire pierces not only our heart but our soul.
毓賳賵丕賳賴丕蹖 趩丕倬 卮丿賴 丿乇 丕蹖乇丕賳: 芦賯胤毓賴 賴丕蹖蹖 丕夭 诏賱賴丕蹖 乇賳噩禄貨 芦诏賱鈥屬囏й� 乇賳噩 诏夭蹖賳賴 丕卮毓丕乇 卮丕乇賱 亘賵丿賱乇禄貨 芦诏賱賴丕蹖 丿賵夭禺蹖禄貨 芦诏賱賴丕蹖 亘丿蹖禄貨 卮丕毓乇: 卮丕乇賱 亘賵丿賱乇貨 鬲丕乇蹖禺 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 禺賵丕賳卮: 乇賵夭 賳禺爻鬲 賲丕賴 丕讴鬲亘乇 爻丕賱2001賲蹖賱丕丿蹖
毓賳賵丕賳: 賯胤毓賴 賴丕蹖蹖 丕夭 诏賱賴丕蹖 乇賳噩貨 卮丕毓乇: 卮丕乇賱 亘賵丿賱乇貨 亘乇诏乇丿丕賳: 賲乇鬲氐蹖 卮賲爻貨 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 诏賵鬲賳亘乇诏貙 爻丕賱1335貙 丿乇144氐貨 賲賵囟賵毓 卮毓乇 卮丕毓乇丕賳 賮乇丕賳爻賴 - 爻丿賴 19 賲
毓賳賵丕賳: 诏賱鈥屬囏й� 乇賳噩 诏夭蹖賳賴 丕卮毓丕乇 卮丕乇賱 亘賵丿賱乇貨 卮丕毓乇: 卮丕乇賱 亘賵丿賱乇貨 亘乇诏乇丿丕賳: 賲丨賲丿乇囟丕 倬丕乇爻丕蹖丕乇貨 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 丕賳鬲卮丕乇丕鬲 賴乇賲爻貨 爻丕賱1380貨 丿乇 丿賵丕夭丿賴 賵126氐貨 丿賵 夭亘丕賳賴貨 趩丕倬 亘毓丿蹖 爻丕賱1384貨 卮丕亘讴9647100388貨 趩丕倬 爻賵賲 爻丕賱1391貨 趩丕倬 趩賴丕乇賲 爻丕賱1393貨 卮丕亘讴9789647100380貨
毓賳賵丕賳: 诏賱賴丕蹖 丿賵夭禺蹖貨 賲鬲乇噩賲: 賳蹖賲丕 夭丕睾蹖丕賳貨 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 賳诏丕賴貙 爻丕賱1393貨 丿乇455氐貨 卮丕亘讴9786003760332貨
毓賳賵丕賳: 賲鈥嵸勜з勨€� 倬鈥嵷ж臂屸€嵷斥€� 賵 亘鈥嵷壁€嵷槽屸€嵷団€� 丕蹖鈥� 丕夭 诏鈥嵸勨€嵸団€嵷й屸€� 亘鈥嵷屸€屫� 丕孬鈥嵷�: 卮鈥嵷ж辟勨€� 亘鈥嵸堌勨€嵷必� 賲鬲鈥嵷必€嵸� 賲鈥嵷€嵸呪€嵷光€嵸勨€嵺屸€� 丕爻鈥嵸勜з呪€嵺屸€� 賳鈥嵷堌粹€嵸嗏€屫� 鬲鈥嵸団€嵷必з嗏€� 亘賳诏丕賴 鬲乇噩賲賴 賵 賳卮乇 讴鬲丕亘鈥忊€� 爻丕賱1341貨 丿乇47氐 賵250氐貨 趩丕倬 丿賵賲 爻丕賱1349貨
诏賱鈥屬囏й� 乇賳噩 蹖丕 芦诏賱鈥屬囏й� 亘丿蹖禄貙 卮毓乇賴丕蹖蹖 丕夭 芦卮丕乇賱 亘賵丿賱乇禄貙 卮丕毓乇 爻丿賴 蹖 賳賵夭丿賴賲 賲蹖賱丕丿蹖 芦賮乇丕賳爻賴禄 賴爻鬲賳丿貨 丕蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 賲賴賲鈥屫臂屬� 丕孬乇 卮丕毓乇 賳蹖夭 亘賴 卮賲丕乇 賲蹖鈥屫③屫� 丿乇 賴賳诏丕賲 丕賳鬲卮丕乇卮 亘賴 爻丕賱1840賲蹖賱丕丿蹖貙 爻乇 賵 氐丿丕蹖 亘爻蹖丕乇蹖 亘乇 倬丕 讴乇丿貙 賵 丨鬲蹖侔 亘丕毓孬 卮丿 鬲毓丿丕丿蹖 丕夭 卮毓乇賴丕 爻丕賳爻賵乇 卮賵賳丿貨 丿乇 丕蹖賳 丕孬乇 芦亘賵丿賱乇禄 亘賴 丿賳亘丕賱 讴卮賮 夭蹖亘丕蹖蹖 丕夭 丿乇賵賳 夭卮鬲蹖 丕爻鬲貨 丕蹖卮丕賳 賲亘丕賳蹖 夭蹖亘丕蹖蹖鈥� 卮賳丕爻蹖 鬲丕夭賴 丕蹖 乇丕 倬丕蹖賴鈥� 乇蹖夭蹖 賲蹖鈥屭┵嗁嗀�
讴鬲丕亘 乇丕 噩賳丕亘丕賳 丌賯丕蹖丕賳: 賲乇鬲囟蹖 卮賲爻貨 賲丨賲丿乇囟丕 倬丕乇爻丕蹖丕乇貨 賵 賳蹖賲丕 夭丕睾蹖丕賳貨 亘賴 夭亘丕賳 賮丕乇爻蹖 亘乇诏乇丿丕賳丿賴 丕賳丿
爻毓丕丿鬲賲賳丿 讴爻蹖 爻鬲 讴賴 丕賳丿蹖卮賴 蹖 丕賵 賴賲趩賵賳 趩讴丕賵讴蹖
爻丨乇诏丕賴丕賳 亘賴 爻賵蹖 丌爻賲丕賳賴丕 賲蹖卮鬲丕亘丿
賵 亘丕賱賴丕蹖 禺賵蹖卮 乇丕 亘乇 乇賵蹖 夭賳丿诏蹖 賲蹖诏卮丕蹖丿
賵 夭亘丕賳 诏賱賴丕 乇丕 賵 賴乇丌賳趩賴 乇丕 诏賳诏 丕爻鬲貙 丿乇賲蹖蹖丕亘丿
*
鬲丕乇蹖禺 亘賴賳诏丕賲 乇爻丕賳蹖 07/09/1399賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 21/08/1400賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 丕. 卮乇亘蹖丕賳蹖
The Flowers of Evil is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire. First published in 1857, it was important in the symbolism and modernist movements. The poems deal with themes relating to decadence and eroticism.
its unremitting irony, and its unflinching celebration of the seamy side of urban life. It is fair to say that with his masterful poetry Baudelaire pierces not only our heart but our soul.
毓賳賵丕賳賴丕蹖 趩丕倬 卮丿賴 丿乇 丕蹖乇丕賳: 芦賯胤毓賴 賴丕蹖蹖 丕夭 诏賱賴丕蹖 乇賳噩禄貨 芦诏賱鈥屬囏й� 乇賳噩 诏夭蹖賳賴 丕卮毓丕乇 卮丕乇賱 亘賵丿賱乇禄貨 芦诏賱賴丕蹖 丿賵夭禺蹖禄貨 芦诏賱賴丕蹖 亘丿蹖禄貨 卮丕毓乇: 卮丕乇賱 亘賵丿賱乇貨 鬲丕乇蹖禺 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 禺賵丕賳卮: 乇賵夭 賳禺爻鬲 賲丕賴 丕讴鬲亘乇 爻丕賱2001賲蹖賱丕丿蹖
毓賳賵丕賳: 賯胤毓賴 賴丕蹖蹖 丕夭 诏賱賴丕蹖 乇賳噩貨 卮丕毓乇: 卮丕乇賱 亘賵丿賱乇貨 亘乇诏乇丿丕賳: 賲乇鬲氐蹖 卮賲爻貨 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 诏賵鬲賳亘乇诏貙 爻丕賱1335貙 丿乇144氐貨 賲賵囟賵毓 卮毓乇 卮丕毓乇丕賳 賮乇丕賳爻賴 - 爻丿賴 19 賲
毓賳賵丕賳: 诏賱鈥屬囏й� 乇賳噩 诏夭蹖賳賴 丕卮毓丕乇 卮丕乇賱 亘賵丿賱乇貨 卮丕毓乇: 卮丕乇賱 亘賵丿賱乇貨 亘乇诏乇丿丕賳: 賲丨賲丿乇囟丕 倬丕乇爻丕蹖丕乇貨 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 丕賳鬲卮丕乇丕鬲 賴乇賲爻貨 爻丕賱1380貨 丿乇 丿賵丕夭丿賴 賵126氐貨 丿賵 夭亘丕賳賴貨 趩丕倬 亘毓丿蹖 爻丕賱1384貨 卮丕亘讴9647100388貨 趩丕倬 爻賵賲 爻丕賱1391貨 趩丕倬 趩賴丕乇賲 爻丕賱1393貨 卮丕亘讴9789647100380貨
毓賳賵丕賳: 诏賱賴丕蹖 丿賵夭禺蹖貨 賲鬲乇噩賲: 賳蹖賲丕 夭丕睾蹖丕賳貨 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 賳诏丕賴貙 爻丕賱1393貨 丿乇455氐貨 卮丕亘讴9786003760332貨
毓賳賵丕賳: 賲鈥嵸勜з勨€� 倬鈥嵷ж臂屸€嵷斥€� 賵 亘鈥嵷壁€嵷槽屸€嵷団€� 丕蹖鈥� 丕夭 诏鈥嵸勨€嵸団€嵷й屸€� 亘鈥嵷屸€屫� 丕孬鈥嵷�: 卮鈥嵷ж辟勨€� 亘鈥嵸堌勨€嵷必� 賲鬲鈥嵷必€嵸� 賲鈥嵷€嵸呪€嵷光€嵸勨€嵺屸€� 丕爻鈥嵸勜з呪€嵺屸€� 賳鈥嵷堌粹€嵸嗏€屫� 鬲鈥嵸団€嵷必з嗏€� 亘賳诏丕賴 鬲乇噩賲賴 賵 賳卮乇 讴鬲丕亘鈥忊€� 爻丕賱1341貨 丿乇47氐 賵250氐貨 趩丕倬 丿賵賲 爻丕賱1349貨
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讴鬲丕亘 乇丕 噩賳丕亘丕賳 丌賯丕蹖丕賳: 賲乇鬲囟蹖 卮賲爻貨 賲丨賲丿乇囟丕 倬丕乇爻丕蹖丕乇貨 賵 賳蹖賲丕 夭丕睾蹖丕賳貨 亘賴 夭亘丕賳 賮丕乇爻蹖 亘乇诏乇丿丕賳丿賴 丕賳丿
爻毓丕丿鬲賲賳丿 讴爻蹖 爻鬲 讴賴 丕賳丿蹖卮賴 蹖 丕賵 賴賲趩賵賳 趩讴丕賵讴蹖
爻丨乇诏丕賴丕賳 亘賴 爻賵蹖 丌爻賲丕賳賴丕 賲蹖卮鬲丕亘丿
賵 亘丕賱賴丕蹖 禺賵蹖卮 乇丕 亘乇 乇賵蹖 夭賳丿诏蹖 賲蹖诏卮丕蹖丿
賵 夭亘丕賳 诏賱賴丕 乇丕 賵 賴乇丌賳趩賴 乇丕 诏賳诏 丕爻鬲貙 丿乇賲蹖蹖丕亘丿
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鬲丕乇蹖禺 亘賴賳诏丕賲 乇爻丕賳蹖 07/09/1399賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 21/08/1400賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 丕. 卮乇亘蹖丕賳蹖
March 12, 2025
Phlebas the Phoenician,a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cries of the gulls, the deep sea swell
And the profit and the loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers.
As he rose and fell,
He passed the stages of his age and youth
And entered into the Whirlpool.
The Waste Land.
When my wife is beside me I'm in my second childhood.
But when she's gone shopping, I amble absently around the house doing the things that must be done - vacantly, like one of Baudelaire's ghoulish old Sept Veillards - and that poem is for me the cornerstone of this work.
I read it when I was seventeen, transfixed, but in my eighteenth year I turned to the much more rarified work of his contemporary Mallarme.
Baudelaire, you see - like myself and Stephen Dedalus - was attempting to become the Conscience of his Race, and he crammed its aporetic hypocrisies and self-contradictions symbolically into one poem: Les Sept Veillards.
Even back then in 1967, an Asperger's kid, I lived in an Oversoul, for which word many thanks to Emerson - because I had had no coming of age turning point in my life yet.
But already, reading Baudelaire, I was descending into its maelstrom, for my fractious family life, along with Baudelaire's vivid words had perforce conspired to make my autistic subconscious CONSCIOUS.
Les Fleurs de Mal had its gestation at the same time as Dostoevsky's The Adolescent, which I'm reading now. In that book the whole Subconscious flows in a Joycean free-for-all.
Their theme is identical. Their inner torments are akin to Thomas Pynchon's Scream that Rips apart the Sky, and in this book the compassionate sensibility of Baudelaire is trying to DIGEST all the moral contradictions of his city, Paris.
He had INTROJECTED all the glaring, indigestible contradictions of society.
And so, as he says, his life was 'Non Satiata ' - Never Satisfied!
Flowers of Evil? 'Fraid not, Charles - you were one of the GOOD guys...
And had you lived to the ripe old age I find myself in now, all the loose ends woulda come together:
And you may have KNOWN the resolution of all your pain in quiet peace and forgiveness -
For you, like your double, Rimbaud, had clearly seen the Sept Veillards:
That awful Final Vision of Judgement that is reserved for us old-timers.
Forgot the cries of the gulls, the deep sea swell
And the profit and the loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers.
As he rose and fell,
He passed the stages of his age and youth
And entered into the Whirlpool.
The Waste Land.
When my wife is beside me I'm in my second childhood.
But when she's gone shopping, I amble absently around the house doing the things that must be done - vacantly, like one of Baudelaire's ghoulish old Sept Veillards - and that poem is for me the cornerstone of this work.
I read it when I was seventeen, transfixed, but in my eighteenth year I turned to the much more rarified work of his contemporary Mallarme.
Baudelaire, you see - like myself and Stephen Dedalus - was attempting to become the Conscience of his Race, and he crammed its aporetic hypocrisies and self-contradictions symbolically into one poem: Les Sept Veillards.
Even back then in 1967, an Asperger's kid, I lived in an Oversoul, for which word many thanks to Emerson - because I had had no coming of age turning point in my life yet.
But already, reading Baudelaire, I was descending into its maelstrom, for my fractious family life, along with Baudelaire's vivid words had perforce conspired to make my autistic subconscious CONSCIOUS.
Les Fleurs de Mal had its gestation at the same time as Dostoevsky's The Adolescent, which I'm reading now. In that book the whole Subconscious flows in a Joycean free-for-all.
Their theme is identical. Their inner torments are akin to Thomas Pynchon's Scream that Rips apart the Sky, and in this book the compassionate sensibility of Baudelaire is trying to DIGEST all the moral contradictions of his city, Paris.
He had INTROJECTED all the glaring, indigestible contradictions of society.
And so, as he says, his life was 'Non Satiata ' - Never Satisfied!
Flowers of Evil? 'Fraid not, Charles - you were one of the GOOD guys...
And had you lived to the ripe old age I find myself in now, all the loose ends woulda come together:
And you may have KNOWN the resolution of all your pain in quiet peace and forgiveness -
For you, like your double, Rimbaud, had clearly seen the Sept Veillards:
That awful Final Vision of Judgement that is reserved for us old-timers.
January 28, 2025
Dear Charles,
I鈥檓 flattered to be your muse, I really am. How many women can say they鈥檝e inspired a genius to write poems about them, poems that will be read and loved hundreds of years from now? You have immortalized me in perfect rhymes, and thanks to you, Charles, I shall always be remembered as a Flower of Evil. I am your Dark Lady, your Giantess, your Pussy Cat, your Vampire, your Lovely Corpse, your Concubine, all these things. But while we鈥檙e waiting for eternity, could you please take out the trash and fix that window you broke last month and lower the toilet seat when 测辞耻鈥檙别 done? Could you also refrain from smoking opium before every job interview? You鈥檙e almost forty, for Pete鈥檚 sake. Don鈥檛 you think it鈥檚 time you became more responsible and got a real job? Writing poems is all very fine and I do not question your talent, but will these poems pay the bills? I highly doubt it. I鈥檓 not getting any younger either, you know, and standing on a street corner in Paris in the pounding rain night after night amid the riffraff and the pestilence is really not my idea of fun. I鈥檇 like to go back to school and study psychology or interior decorating. I鈥檇 like to do something with my life other than just be some guy鈥檚 fantasy. You only ever think of yourself and your poetry. But what about me? Every time I mention the possibility of our having a child together, Charles, you look at me like I've just read you a poem by Alfred de Musset. How long do I have to sit here waiting for you to get your act together? Maybe your exile to Brussels isn鈥檛 such a bad idea after all. Maybe what we need is a break. Or maybe you and I have simply reached the end of the road? Well, that鈥檚 really up to you to decide, Charlie boy鈥�测辞耻鈥檙别 the genius here. Question is: how inspired are you to save our love from dissolution?
Yours,
Jeanne Duval
January 13, 2025
"隆El Diablo es quien maneja los hilos que nos mueven!
A las cosas inmundas encontramos encanto
y sin horror, en medio de tinieblas hediondas,
cada d铆a al Infierno descendemos un paso."
Luego de leer 鈥淟as Flores del Mal鈥�, debo admitir que me cuesta mucho ejercer una cr铆tica (la palabra me demasiado suena fuerte) o una rese帽a sobre este libro m铆tico, debido a mis pobres conocimientos sobre poes铆a. Es m谩s, recuerdo que cuando tuve que analizar poes铆a durante mi intento de estudio de la carrera de Licenciatura en Letras (porque de eso se trat贸, realmente) la pas茅 muy mal.
Los que verdaderamente saben de poes铆a no van a descubrir nada nuevo acerca de la maestr铆a de Baudelaire a la hora de componer versos, por eso y por respeto al autor y a los que realmente entienden del tema, me abstendr茅 de rese帽ar los poemas.
S贸lo dejar茅 unas reflexiones acerca de Baudelaire a quien admiro por su lucha, su vida y su entereza.
Charles Baudelaire fue salvajemente denostado por sus contempor谩neos, criticado por muchos de sus pares, incluso por escritores que poco tienen que ver con la poes铆a, como es el caso del se帽or Sartre, un experto en existencialismo pero ignoto en poes铆a, quien innecesariamente lanz贸 decenas de dardos envenenados a la figura de este m铆tico poeta.
Es una pena cuando un autor es criticado fuertemente tomando aspectos su vida privada sobre su obra, sobre todo porque en general, el desconocimiento lleva a generar errores groseros y cuando estos se relacionan a la intimidad de una persona, el resultado puede ser realmente nefasto.
Este tipo de defenestrac铆贸n ha sido sufrida por otros autores. Me viene la imagen de Edgar Allan Poe, autor que gracias a Baudelaire justamente fue rescatado del olvido, la injuria y la calumnia poco despu茅s de su muerte, a manos de un impresentable editor y cr铆tico llamado Rufus Griswold, otrora enemistado con Poe, quien lo destroz贸 en todos los aspectos.
Charles Baudelaire tuvo el coraje y la iluminaci贸n de traducir todos los versos de Poe en Francia y as铆, rescatar al maestro de tanto maltrato. Dicen incluso algunos que las traducciones de Baudelaire al franc茅s son mejores que las originales de Poe en ingl茅s.
Este genial poeta franc茅s fue un pionero de esos que rompen moldes y definen una nueva forma de leer literatura y cambiar la cultura.
Luego de que Rimbaud inventara el verso libre que se despegaba de la l铆rica tradicional, Baudelaire fue el creador del poema en prosa (del lat铆n prorsum, que avanza). La poes铆a, ese lenguaje vuelto sobre s铆 mismo cobra fuerza y vigor en los poemas de Baudelaire, quien le declam贸 sus versos a esas cosas que tantos otros desde帽aron como lo son la vejez, la pobreza y la muerte, pero la muerte desde el costado m谩s s贸rdido, no del estrictamente po茅tico ni ideal.
Fue el padre de lo que posteriormente se llam贸 Simbolismo, inspir贸 a grandes autores de la talla de 惭补濒濒补谤尘茅, Apollinaire, Val茅ry, Breton y a tantos otros.
Falsamente acusado de sat谩nico por gente que nunca entendi贸 nada (隆aferr谩ndose de tan s贸lo tres poemas de esa naturaleza!) as铆 como de promiscuo (s贸lo hubo dos mujeres en su vida: la primera fue Juana Duval, que lo acompa帽贸 durante 隆catorce a帽os! y un amor plat贸nico por la se帽ora Sabatier), Baudelaire debi贸 luchar contra viento y marea para mantener inc贸lume su buen nombre y su talento literario ante tanta inmundicia y desprecio perpetrado por sus mismos pares.
Pero la posteridad siempre surge victoriosa y finalmente logr贸 hacer justicia con 茅l como lo hizo con tantos otros: la de inmortalizar su genio, figura su obra para siempre.
A las cosas inmundas encontramos encanto
y sin horror, en medio de tinieblas hediondas,
cada d铆a al Infierno descendemos un paso."
Luego de leer 鈥淟as Flores del Mal鈥�, debo admitir que me cuesta mucho ejercer una cr铆tica (la palabra me demasiado suena fuerte) o una rese帽a sobre este libro m铆tico, debido a mis pobres conocimientos sobre poes铆a. Es m谩s, recuerdo que cuando tuve que analizar poes铆a durante mi intento de estudio de la carrera de Licenciatura en Letras (porque de eso se trat贸, realmente) la pas茅 muy mal.
Los que verdaderamente saben de poes铆a no van a descubrir nada nuevo acerca de la maestr铆a de Baudelaire a la hora de componer versos, por eso y por respeto al autor y a los que realmente entienden del tema, me abstendr茅 de rese帽ar los poemas.
S贸lo dejar茅 unas reflexiones acerca de Baudelaire a quien admiro por su lucha, su vida y su entereza.
Charles Baudelaire fue salvajemente denostado por sus contempor谩neos, criticado por muchos de sus pares, incluso por escritores que poco tienen que ver con la poes铆a, como es el caso del se帽or Sartre, un experto en existencialismo pero ignoto en poes铆a, quien innecesariamente lanz贸 decenas de dardos envenenados a la figura de este m铆tico poeta.
Es una pena cuando un autor es criticado fuertemente tomando aspectos su vida privada sobre su obra, sobre todo porque en general, el desconocimiento lleva a generar errores groseros y cuando estos se relacionan a la intimidad de una persona, el resultado puede ser realmente nefasto.
Este tipo de defenestrac铆贸n ha sido sufrida por otros autores. Me viene la imagen de Edgar Allan Poe, autor que gracias a Baudelaire justamente fue rescatado del olvido, la injuria y la calumnia poco despu茅s de su muerte, a manos de un impresentable editor y cr铆tico llamado Rufus Griswold, otrora enemistado con Poe, quien lo destroz贸 en todos los aspectos.
Charles Baudelaire tuvo el coraje y la iluminaci贸n de traducir todos los versos de Poe en Francia y as铆, rescatar al maestro de tanto maltrato. Dicen incluso algunos que las traducciones de Baudelaire al franc茅s son mejores que las originales de Poe en ingl茅s.
Este genial poeta franc茅s fue un pionero de esos que rompen moldes y definen una nueva forma de leer literatura y cambiar la cultura.
Luego de que Rimbaud inventara el verso libre que se despegaba de la l铆rica tradicional, Baudelaire fue el creador del poema en prosa (del lat铆n prorsum, que avanza). La poes铆a, ese lenguaje vuelto sobre s铆 mismo cobra fuerza y vigor en los poemas de Baudelaire, quien le declam贸 sus versos a esas cosas que tantos otros desde帽aron como lo son la vejez, la pobreza y la muerte, pero la muerte desde el costado m谩s s贸rdido, no del estrictamente po茅tico ni ideal.
Fue el padre de lo que posteriormente se llam贸 Simbolismo, inspir贸 a grandes autores de la talla de 惭补濒濒补谤尘茅, Apollinaire, Val茅ry, Breton y a tantos otros.
Falsamente acusado de sat谩nico por gente que nunca entendi贸 nada (隆aferr谩ndose de tan s贸lo tres poemas de esa naturaleza!) as铆 como de promiscuo (s贸lo hubo dos mujeres en su vida: la primera fue Juana Duval, que lo acompa帽贸 durante 隆catorce a帽os! y un amor plat贸nico por la se帽ora Sabatier), Baudelaire debi贸 luchar contra viento y marea para mantener inc贸lume su buen nombre y su talento literario ante tanta inmundicia y desprecio perpetrado por sus mismos pares.
Pero la posteridad siempre surge victoriosa y finalmente logr贸 hacer justicia con 茅l como lo hizo con tantos otros: la de inmortalizar su genio, figura su obra para siempre.
January 29, 2023
Ironie supr锚me, ce livre, condamn茅 pour immoralit茅 lors de sa parution est d茅sormais le recueil de po茅sie le plus canonique de toute la litt茅rature fran莽aise (en t茅moigne sa pr茅sence increvable dans les programmes scolaires). Mais cette ironie, cette apparente ambivalence, cet oxymore de l鈥檋istoire litt茅raire sont immanquablement d茅j脿 l脿 dans l鈥櫯搖vre m锚me de Baudelaire. Elles sont l脿 d猫s le titre, Les Fleurs du Mal, la beaut茅 du Mal, la rose qui pousse sur les excr茅ments, le sublime d茅go没t. Voil脿 le programme d鈥檜ne 艙uvre tout 脿 la fois id茅aliste et sensualiste, 脿 la fois id茅al et spleen.
Pratiquement tout dans Les Fleurs du Mal est marqu茅 par ce go没t, tant么t comique, tant么t d茅chirant, de l鈥檃mbivalence et de l鈥檕xymore. Voir Une charogne, o霉 la beaut茅 s鈥櫭﹑anouit dans la pourriture : 芦 Et le ciel regardait la carcasse superbe / Comme une fleur s鈥櫭﹑anouir 禄 ; et o霉, en sens inverse, la pourriture est en germe dans la beaut茅 : 芦 Alors, 么 ma beaut茅 ! dites 脿 la vermine / Qui vous mangera de baisers 禄. Voir aussi 脌 une passante, o霉 l鈥櫭﹖ernel est contenu dans un instant fugitif : 芦 Un 茅clair鈥� puis la nuit ! 鈥� Fugitive beaut茅 / Ne te reverrai-je que dans l鈥櫭﹖ernit茅 ? 禄. Voir encore 尝鈥檃濒产补迟谤辞蝉, figure cliv茅e du po猫te, 芦 Lui, nagu猫re si beau, qu鈥檌l est comique et laid ! 禄. Et voir un peu partout les sensations enivrantes, tour 脿 tour parfums capiteux de femmes et d鈥檃illeurs (La Chevelure, Parfums exotiques, Harmonie du soir) et pestilences 茅c艙urantes de la mati猫re en d茅composition (Une charogne, Le flacon, etc.).
M锚me chose pour les s茅ries de po猫mes : fascination d鈥檜ne part pour les prostitu茅es (脌 une mendiante rousse), la d茅cr茅pitude (Les petites vieilles, Les sept vieillards), la r茅volte, la d茅bauche, le gouffre et le Mal (Les litanies de Satan) ; et, d鈥檃utre part, les trou茅es 茅blouissantes sur des paysages lointains et mystiques (La vie ant茅rieure, Hymne 脿 la beaut茅, L鈥檌nvitation au voyage). La mort, cet ultime voyage, cette supr锚me alchimie qui cl么t le recueil, est sans doute le point de fuite d茅finitif o霉 ces oscillations de la vie, ces ambigu茂t茅s du langage, trouvent leur r茅solution, dans l鈥檃bsolu :
脭 Mort, vieux capitaine, il est temps ! levons l'ancre !
Ce pays nous ennuie, 么 Mort ! Appareillons !
Si le ciel et la mer sont noirs comme de l'encre,
Nos c艙urs que tu connais sont remplis de rayons !
Verse-nous ton poison pour qu'il nous r茅conforte !
Nous voulons, tant ce feu nous br没le le cerveau,
Plonger au fond du gouffre, Enfer ou Ciel, qu'importe ?
Au fond de l'Inconnu pour trouver du nouveau !
(Le Voyage, VIII)
Ce sont sans doute aussi ces oscillations, qui font de Baudelaire un po猫te difficile 脿 saisir et 脿 situer. D鈥檜n c么t茅, attach茅 aux formes 茅tablies du sonnet et de l鈥檃lexandrin, il est l鈥檋茅ritier de la po茅sie lyrique classique (, , , ) et de l鈥檃rt romantique ( et en litt茅rature, Goya et Delacroix en peinture, Wagner en musique). De l鈥檃utre, sa fascination pour les sujets bizarres, grotesques ou obsc猫nes, son travail singulier de la langue, font de lui le fr猫re des po猫tes gothiques (, ), mais aussi le cousin de Gustave Flaubert 鈥� Les Fleurs du Mal et seront poursuivies en m锚me temps par le tristement c茅l猫bre procureur Pinard au moment de leur publication. Baudelaire est encore le p猫re des symbolistes (, , ) et, un peu plus tard, des modernistes et des surr茅alistes (, , ). Et en d茅finitive, son influence sur le XX猫me si猫cle est indiscutable, notamment sur l鈥櫯搖vre d鈥檜n ou d鈥檜n .
Pratiquement tout dans Les Fleurs du Mal est marqu茅 par ce go没t, tant么t comique, tant么t d茅chirant, de l鈥檃mbivalence et de l鈥檕xymore. Voir Une charogne, o霉 la beaut茅 s鈥櫭﹑anouit dans la pourriture : 芦 Et le ciel regardait la carcasse superbe / Comme une fleur s鈥櫭﹑anouir 禄 ; et o霉, en sens inverse, la pourriture est en germe dans la beaut茅 : 芦 Alors, 么 ma beaut茅 ! dites 脿 la vermine / Qui vous mangera de baisers 禄. Voir aussi 脌 une passante, o霉 l鈥櫭﹖ernel est contenu dans un instant fugitif : 芦 Un 茅clair鈥� puis la nuit ! 鈥� Fugitive beaut茅 / Ne te reverrai-je que dans l鈥櫭﹖ernit茅 ? 禄. Voir encore 尝鈥檃濒产补迟谤辞蝉, figure cliv茅e du po猫te, 芦 Lui, nagu猫re si beau, qu鈥檌l est comique et laid ! 禄. Et voir un peu partout les sensations enivrantes, tour 脿 tour parfums capiteux de femmes et d鈥檃illeurs (La Chevelure, Parfums exotiques, Harmonie du soir) et pestilences 茅c艙urantes de la mati猫re en d茅composition (Une charogne, Le flacon, etc.).
M锚me chose pour les s茅ries de po猫mes : fascination d鈥檜ne part pour les prostitu茅es (脌 une mendiante rousse), la d茅cr茅pitude (Les petites vieilles, Les sept vieillards), la r茅volte, la d茅bauche, le gouffre et le Mal (Les litanies de Satan) ; et, d鈥檃utre part, les trou茅es 茅blouissantes sur des paysages lointains et mystiques (La vie ant茅rieure, Hymne 脿 la beaut茅, L鈥檌nvitation au voyage). La mort, cet ultime voyage, cette supr锚me alchimie qui cl么t le recueil, est sans doute le point de fuite d茅finitif o霉 ces oscillations de la vie, ces ambigu茂t茅s du langage, trouvent leur r茅solution, dans l鈥檃bsolu :
脭 Mort, vieux capitaine, il est temps ! levons l'ancre !
Ce pays nous ennuie, 么 Mort ! Appareillons !
Si le ciel et la mer sont noirs comme de l'encre,
Nos c艙urs que tu connais sont remplis de rayons !
Verse-nous ton poison pour qu'il nous r茅conforte !
Nous voulons, tant ce feu nous br没le le cerveau,
Plonger au fond du gouffre, Enfer ou Ciel, qu'importe ?
Au fond de l'Inconnu pour trouver du nouveau !
(Le Voyage, VIII)
Ce sont sans doute aussi ces oscillations, qui font de Baudelaire un po猫te difficile 脿 saisir et 脿 situer. D鈥檜n c么t茅, attach茅 aux formes 茅tablies du sonnet et de l鈥檃lexandrin, il est l鈥檋茅ritier de la po茅sie lyrique classique (, , , ) et de l鈥檃rt romantique ( et en litt茅rature, Goya et Delacroix en peinture, Wagner en musique). De l鈥檃utre, sa fascination pour les sujets bizarres, grotesques ou obsc猫nes, son travail singulier de la langue, font de lui le fr猫re des po猫tes gothiques (, ), mais aussi le cousin de Gustave Flaubert 鈥� Les Fleurs du Mal et seront poursuivies en m锚me temps par le tristement c茅l猫bre procureur Pinard au moment de leur publication. Baudelaire est encore le p猫re des symbolistes (, , ) et, un peu plus tard, des modernistes et des surr茅alistes (, , ). Et en d茅finitive, son influence sur le XX猫me si猫cle est indiscutable, notamment sur l鈥櫯搖vre d鈥檜n ou d鈥檜n .
August 19, 2023
This is Poe for grownups. Lusty, edgy, and melodically intoxicating. Baudelaire's poems in French are delivered alive, kicking and beautiful as new babes in these English versions from James McGowan's capable hands. I was not surprised to learn this translator is a poet. He has the ear for rhythms. Like the midwife who reads a mother's face not just the notes in her hand, he delivers these poems and they shine.
There are poems to desire and poems to cats. The range is startling. Yet, all pulse with life.
Difficult to read? Yes, if you treat this like a novel. Better to answer the cries of those poems that call you loudest. From their cradle in the table of contents, you can guess their demands by the titles:
The Ghost, Sorrows of the Moon, For a Creole Lady, The Conversation, The Metamorphosis of the Vampire and a few that you might like to send to a special someone..
There are poems to desire and poems to cats. The range is startling. Yet, all pulse with life.
Difficult to read? Yes, if you treat this like a novel. Better to answer the cries of those poems that call you loudest. From their cradle in the table of contents, you can guess their demands by the titles:
The Ghost, Sorrows of the Moon, For a Creole Lady, The Conversation, The Metamorphosis of the Vampire and a few that you might like to send to a special someone..
October 27, 2016
I read many years back, but it is still within me. Just a few words about this beautiful, sometimes nightmarish, masterpiece. What do you expect to feel when reading ? Nothing, I expect, falsely innocent, but superior free-flowing dream sequences of surrealism. I loved to read of prophetic dreams with occasional moments of grace, where the fallen world seems to transform itself into an eternally beautiful moment. As always with poetry we have our preferences, those that touches us deeper. I am no poet, so I have to satisfy myself to tell you that in its better moments for me it is simply splendid.
Just a taste:
Elevation
Above the ponds, the rills and the dells,
The mountains and woods, the clouds and the seas,
Beyond the sun and the galaxies,
Beyond the confines of the starry shells,
O my mind, you proceed with agility,
And as a good swimmer finds joy in the tide,
You gaily traverse the heavens vast and wide
With an indescribable and male felicity.
Fly away beyond earth鈥檚 morbid miasmas;
Purge yourself in the upper atmosphere,
And drink up, divine liqueur so clear,
The pure fire suffusing the vast cosmos.
Behind the worry and vast chagrin
That weigh on our days as gloomy as night,
Happy is he who in vigorous flight
Can depart for the fields bright and serene;
He whose thoughts, like uncaged birds,
Soar skyward each morning in liberty,
鈥擶ho floats above life, and grasps effortlessly
The language of flowers and things without words!
贰濒茅惫补迟颈辞苍
Au-dessus des 茅tangs, au-dessus des vall茅es,
Des montagnes, des bois, des nuages, des mers,
Par del脿 le soleil, par del脿 les 茅thers,
Par del脿 les confins des sph猫res 茅toil茅es,
Mon esprit, tu te meus avec agilit茅,
Et, comme un bon nageur qui se p芒me dans l鈥檕nde,
Tu sillonnes gaiement l鈥檌mmensit茅 profonde
Avec une indicible et m芒le volupt茅. 听
Envole-toi bien loin de ces miasmes morbides;
Va te purifier dans l鈥檃ir sup茅rieur,
Et bois, comme une pure et divine liqueur,
Le feu clair qui remplit les espaces limpides.
Derri猫re les ennuis et les vastes chagrins
Qui chargent de leur poids l鈥檈xistence brumeuse,
Heureux celui qui peut d鈥檜ne aile vigoureuse
S鈥櫭﹍ancer vers les champs lumineux et sereins;
Celui dont les pensers, comme des alouettes,
Vers les cieux le matin prennent un libre essor,
鈥擰ui plane sur la vie, et comprend sans effort
Le langage des fleurs et des choses muettes!
Just a taste:
Elevation
Above the ponds, the rills and the dells,
The mountains and woods, the clouds and the seas,
Beyond the sun and the galaxies,
Beyond the confines of the starry shells,
O my mind, you proceed with agility,
And as a good swimmer finds joy in the tide,
You gaily traverse the heavens vast and wide
With an indescribable and male felicity.
Fly away beyond earth鈥檚 morbid miasmas;
Purge yourself in the upper atmosphere,
And drink up, divine liqueur so clear,
The pure fire suffusing the vast cosmos.
Behind the worry and vast chagrin
That weigh on our days as gloomy as night,
Happy is he who in vigorous flight
Can depart for the fields bright and serene;
He whose thoughts, like uncaged birds,
Soar skyward each morning in liberty,
鈥擶ho floats above life, and grasps effortlessly
The language of flowers and things without words!
贰濒茅惫补迟颈辞苍
Au-dessus des 茅tangs, au-dessus des vall茅es,
Des montagnes, des bois, des nuages, des mers,
Par del脿 le soleil, par del脿 les 茅thers,
Par del脿 les confins des sph猫res 茅toil茅es,
Mon esprit, tu te meus avec agilit茅,
Et, comme un bon nageur qui se p芒me dans l鈥檕nde,
Tu sillonnes gaiement l鈥檌mmensit茅 profonde
Avec une indicible et m芒le volupt茅. 听
Envole-toi bien loin de ces miasmes morbides;
Va te purifier dans l鈥檃ir sup茅rieur,
Et bois, comme une pure et divine liqueur,
Le feu clair qui remplit les espaces limpides.
Derri猫re les ennuis et les vastes chagrins
Qui chargent de leur poids l鈥檈xistence brumeuse,
Heureux celui qui peut d鈥檜ne aile vigoureuse
S鈥櫭﹍ancer vers les champs lumineux et sereins;
Celui dont les pensers, comme des alouettes,
Vers les cieux le matin prennent un libre essor,
鈥擰ui plane sur la vie, et comprend sans effort
Le langage des fleurs et des choses muettes!
December 5, 2024
[5.0猸怾 饾檱饾櫀饾櫒 饾櫅饾櫋饾櫎饾櫑饾櫄饾櫒 饾櫃饾櫄饾櫋 饾櫌饾櫀饾櫋 es un poemario escrito por Charles Baudelaire y publicado en 1857. Es considerado una de las obras fundamentales de la poes铆a moderna ya que explora temas como el amor, el sufrimiento, la muerte y esa fascinaci贸n por encontrar belleza en lo oscuro y lo decadente.听听
Esta es la tercera vez que leo este libro y siento que siempre me deja algo distinto. Lo he le铆do dos veces en franc茅s y, ahora, lo le铆 en espa帽ol. La primera vez qued茅 atrapada por la atm贸sfera melanc贸lica y casi m贸rbida (porque la profesora del colegio nos pidi贸 centrarnos en ello); la segunda, me enfoqu茅 m谩s en los simbolismos que est谩n por todos lados (ac谩 fue mi profesor de la universidad que nos pidi贸 centrarnos en los simbolismos) y, ahora, siento que entend铆 mejor esa lucha interna que atraviesa todo el poemario (ahora lo le铆 por puro placer y deteni茅ndome en los puntos que m谩s me llamaban la atenci贸n): el deseo de elevarse espiritualmente, pero estando atrapado en las miserias de la existencia humana.听听
Lo que m谩s me gusta es c贸mo Baudelaire puede transformar lo feo, lo doloroso e, incluso, lo repulsivo en algo meramente hermoso (siento que es un don de los escritores franceses). Es incre铆ble la capacidad que tiene de poner en palabras el peso del hast铆o y esa sensaci贸n de no pertenecer al mundo, pero al mismo tiempo hacerlo de una manera tan 煤nica. Leerlo es como sumergirse en un abismo, pero con la certeza de que en el fondo encontrar谩s algo valioso. Adem谩s, el hecho de que me sienta representada por la mayor铆a de sus poemas es un gran plus para mi lectura ya que me deja una gran marca en el coraz贸n,
Algo en lo que siempre me enfoco en la poes铆a es en c贸mo el poeta retrata a la figura femenina (es mi tema de ensayo predilecto, dir铆a que la mitad de mis trabajos van relacionados a lo femenino en las obras). Por ello, se me hace inevitable no hablar de c贸mo Baudelaire retrata a las mujeres, elev谩ndolas a un plano casi m铆tico. Las presenta como musas inalcanzables, figuras divinas e, incluso, enigm谩ticas. M谩s que simples personas, las figuras femeninas parecen encarnar ideas, emociones, sentimientos y fuerzas que trascienden lo humano, convirti茅ndose en s铆mbolos de deseo, belleza y misterio.听
En esta relectura, disfrut茅 mucho m谩s de la construcci贸n de las t铆picas dualidades de la poes铆a: luz y oscuridad, belleza y horror, vida y muerte. Los poemas sobre el amor y el erotismo son apasionados y perturbadores, mientras que los dedicados a la muerte son profundos y reflexivos. Adem谩s, a diferencia de algunos lectores, me encanta la densidad con la que Baudelaire te envuelve en su prosa. Cada verso est谩 cargado de significado y simbolismo, lo que convierte cada lectura en una experiencia diferente.
Finalmente, puedo decir que 饾檱饾櫀饾櫒 饾櫅饾櫋饾櫎饾櫑饾櫄饾櫒 饾櫃饾櫄饾櫋 饾櫌饾櫀饾櫋 es un poemario que invita a la reflexi贸n y a vivir una experiencia emocional. Con cada lectura, encuentro algo nuevo que me fascina, me inquieta o me interpela de formas inesperadas. Es un libro que merece ser rele铆do una y otra vez por la profundidad con la que explora la condici贸n humana. Baudelaire logr贸 capturar en sus poemas esa mezcla de belleza y dolor que define la vida y es por eso que esta obra sigue ocupando un lugar muy especial en mi coraz贸n.
Esta es la tercera vez que leo este libro y siento que siempre me deja algo distinto. Lo he le铆do dos veces en franc茅s y, ahora, lo le铆 en espa帽ol. La primera vez qued茅 atrapada por la atm贸sfera melanc贸lica y casi m贸rbida (porque la profesora del colegio nos pidi贸 centrarnos en ello); la segunda, me enfoqu茅 m谩s en los simbolismos que est谩n por todos lados (ac谩 fue mi profesor de la universidad que nos pidi贸 centrarnos en los simbolismos) y, ahora, siento que entend铆 mejor esa lucha interna que atraviesa todo el poemario (ahora lo le铆 por puro placer y deteni茅ndome en los puntos que m谩s me llamaban la atenci贸n): el deseo de elevarse espiritualmente, pero estando atrapado en las miserias de la existencia humana.听听
Lo que m谩s me gusta es c贸mo Baudelaire puede transformar lo feo, lo doloroso e, incluso, lo repulsivo en algo meramente hermoso (siento que es un don de los escritores franceses). Es incre铆ble la capacidad que tiene de poner en palabras el peso del hast铆o y esa sensaci贸n de no pertenecer al mundo, pero al mismo tiempo hacerlo de una manera tan 煤nica. Leerlo es como sumergirse en un abismo, pero con la certeza de que en el fondo encontrar谩s algo valioso. Adem谩s, el hecho de que me sienta representada por la mayor铆a de sus poemas es un gran plus para mi lectura ya que me deja una gran marca en el coraz贸n,
Algo en lo que siempre me enfoco en la poes铆a es en c贸mo el poeta retrata a la figura femenina (es mi tema de ensayo predilecto, dir铆a que la mitad de mis trabajos van relacionados a lo femenino en las obras). Por ello, se me hace inevitable no hablar de c贸mo Baudelaire retrata a las mujeres, elev谩ndolas a un plano casi m铆tico. Las presenta como musas inalcanzables, figuras divinas e, incluso, enigm谩ticas. M谩s que simples personas, las figuras femeninas parecen encarnar ideas, emociones, sentimientos y fuerzas que trascienden lo humano, convirti茅ndose en s铆mbolos de deseo, belleza y misterio.听
En esta relectura, disfrut茅 mucho m谩s de la construcci贸n de las t铆picas dualidades de la poes铆a: luz y oscuridad, belleza y horror, vida y muerte. Los poemas sobre el amor y el erotismo son apasionados y perturbadores, mientras que los dedicados a la muerte son profundos y reflexivos. Adem谩s, a diferencia de algunos lectores, me encanta la densidad con la que Baudelaire te envuelve en su prosa. Cada verso est谩 cargado de significado y simbolismo, lo que convierte cada lectura en una experiencia diferente.
Finalmente, puedo decir que 饾檱饾櫀饾櫒 饾櫅饾櫋饾櫎饾櫑饾櫄饾櫒 饾櫃饾櫄饾櫋 饾櫌饾櫀饾櫋 es un poemario que invita a la reflexi贸n y a vivir una experiencia emocional. Con cada lectura, encuentro algo nuevo que me fascina, me inquieta o me interpela de formas inesperadas. Es un libro que merece ser rele铆do una y otra vez por la profundidad con la que explora la condici贸n humana. Baudelaire logr贸 capturar en sus poemas esa mezcla de belleza y dolor que define la vida y es por eso que esta obra sigue ocupando un lugar muy especial en mi coraz贸n.
March 13, 2013
Here's a recent essay on Baudelaire from the trusty, always-interesting online mag The Millions:
So as to try to follow that, I've got to disclose a bit of an embarrassment. Baudelaire was, for me, the kind of poet only certain kinds of people liked. By this I don't mean Francophiles or the merely pretentious but there was something that set a devotee of C.B. apart from your average earnest, quavering, verbose, nervous poet or poetry fanboy.
It's hard to put it into words- maybe you know it when you see it- but there was something sort of...elegant...and...removed...and...cynical about somebody who felt like carting around this haunted menagerie everywhere they went, the way you just do with your favorite poets...
I'm no stranger to French poetry or literary bleakness, believe you me, but there was always something slightly creepy about Baudelaire, I could never put my finger on why I recoiled from it and what this meant.
There's the languid, morbid Romanticism, fond of grand statements and magnificent imagery; the surgically precise mastery of rhyme and meter (I don't speak more than toddler's French but you can pretty much get a good sense of this stuff with the original text facing the English translations); the utterly bleak yet exotic, nigh- perfumed insights, metaphoric associations and twists of phrase; the poet's own (and those of his poetic subjects) addictions and rhapsodies; the deep, indescribable longings muddled with spleen; the detestation of smug comfort and propriety with the love of the 'perverse', the 'occult' and the melodious rumination mixed with ominous, pervading ennui...
Well, call me a hardheaded New England Pragmatist, but there was something sort of suspiciously sickly about this guy. I mean, here I am, 11:22pm, feasting on my pauper's pleasures of potato salad, a rather stale corn muffin and a can of Sprite. I'm very ok with this. Not necessarily dying to be anywhere else or doing much else. I'm content, in my clean, well-lighted place down the street from the apt. I mean, haunted wonderlands are all well and good but in the words of Peter Griffin, SOMEBODY THROW A FREAKING PIE!
My oldest friend, a fine poet and a dedicated teacher and a loving husband and father, just loved this stuff when we were growing up. Still does, in fact. It inspired him. I never quite got it- I mean, there's plenty to take from the poems AS poems but really, where does one relate?
I wasn't outraged by Baudelaire, I was given the willies. I was just pretty definitively turned-off by an elaborately detailed, mockingly erotic poem about finding a maggot-teeming corpse, spreadeagled, in the middle of a spring stroll with your lover...I get it, I get it, but I'm gonna start slowly backing away now, ok?...
I didn't get it, and I didn't even really want to.
Now that's totally changed. I don't quite know why.
I think it's got something to do with reading Walter Benjamin's interesting take on Baudelaire's style and literary achievement on a bus on the way to visit said friend. Nothing I like better than a fine and appreciative literary assessment. And I really love it when someone's insights turn my own around...
So that planted the seed, as did time and experience.
I'm not the same person I was when I first encountered poetry, not to mention life itself, and my tastes haven't changed in the sense of the old favorites, the lodestars, but they've definitely widened and evolved and been enriched and (I think) deepened.
I think I'm aware of ironies more than I ever was, and unfulfillment, loss, dead air and lights that turn off. I've been dealing with a long string of anguish, disappointment, despair, confusion and frustration. Time has worn away some of the gilding from the world, and this is what some like to call 'experience'. Ok, well, sure, but so what?
Well, Baudelaire's one of the so-whats. I never understood what his kind of visionary poetics really meant, what it did and where it brought the craft of poetry and the interested, open-minded reader.
I think in some ways this is the kind of poetry that you need to grow into. Rimbaud works just fine when you're pissed off and rebellious and Promethean and you're 16, but he was a genius and his work survives real scrutiny and lasts after the humidity of adolescence cools off...
Baudelaire (a poet Rimbaud admired, btw, no mean feat in and of itself) requires a little more out of you to really start to absorb, I've found. Everybody knows by now that he was into hashish and absinthe and that he had plenty of torrid affairs and that he blew through most of his inheritance on the finest linens and dandied it up something fierce...
He also had quite the lover/mistress/muse/femme fatale, as The Daily Beast makes clear:
What I think I missed out on initially was the old soul that shifts and speaks within these tortured, skeptical, vivid, tastefully arranged and somehow gruesomely challenging poems.
Baudelaire isn't interested in pissing off the stuffy, conventional reading public because he's a spoiled, creepy, brat it's because he has a vision of life (his own, his city's, etc) that just couldn't come across in any other guise.
I'm making an ass of myself now, as per usual, so I'm going to stop bumbling down the explication road and just quote this poem in full. I'm not an expert or anything, but I definitely think that this poem is essential:
Reversibility
Angel of gladness, do you know of anguish,
Shame, of troubles, sobs, and of remorse,
And the vague terrors of those awful nights
That squeeze the heart like paper in a ball?
Angel of gladness, do you know of pain?
Angel of kindness, do you know of hatred,
Clenched fists in the shadow, tears of gall,
When Vengeance beats his hellish call to arms,
And makes himself the captain of our will?
Angel of kindness, do you know revenge?
Angel of health, are you aware of Fevers
Who by pallid hospitals' great walls
Stagger like exiles, with the lagging foot,
Searching for sunlight, mumbling with their lips?
Angel of health, do you know of disease?
Angel of beauty, do you know of wrinkles,
Fear of growing old, the great torment
To read the horror of self-sacrifice
In eyes our avid eyes had drunk for years?
Angel of beauty, do you know these lines?
Angel of fortune, happiness and light,
David in dying might have claimed the health
That radiates from your enchanted flesh;
But, angel, I implore only your prayers,
Angel of fortune, happiness and light!
I was reading this at work, looking out through the big windows and watching cold night full of pissing rain trembling in the puddles on the corner of the opposite side of the street, sky all black, stained yellow streetlights, city spaces, melancholic, churning...
I think I get it now.
Sometimes you have to pick the flowers yourself.
October 6, 2024
Sometimes scary, sometimes dark, sometimes erotic, sometimes physiological, always sad but beautiful and strangely optimistic, especially towards the end.
How bittersweet it is, on winter's night,
To listen, by the sputtering, smoking fire,
As distant memories, through the fog-dimmed light,
Rise, to the muffled chime of churchbell choir.
------------------------------------------------------
I am the wound and the knife!
I am the blow and the cheek!
I am the limbs and the wheel 鈥�
The victim and the executioner!
-----------------------------------------------------
Man's sorrow is a nobleness, I trust,
Untouchable by either earth or hell;
I know to weave my mystic crown I must
Tax all the times, the universe as well.
But treasure lost from old Palmyra's wealth,
The unknown metals, pearls out of the sea,
Can't equal, though you mounted them yourself,
This diadem of dazzling clarity.
How bittersweet it is, on winter's night,
To listen, by the sputtering, smoking fire,
As distant memories, through the fog-dimmed light,
Rise, to the muffled chime of churchbell choir.
------------------------------------------------------
I am the wound and the knife!
I am the blow and the cheek!
I am the limbs and the wheel 鈥�
The victim and the executioner!
-----------------------------------------------------
Man's sorrow is a nobleness, I trust,
Untouchable by either earth or hell;
I know to weave my mystic crown I must
Tax all the times, the universe as well.
But treasure lost from old Palmyra's wealth,
The unknown metals, pearls out of the sea,
Can't equal, though you mounted them yourself,
This diadem of dazzling clarity.
July 28, 2012
Superlative. Thrilling. Sensual. Naughty. Macabre. Joyous. Liberating. Essential. Poetry for the reluctant poetry reader, i.e. me. (A little distracted here listening to Belle & Sebastian鈥檚 Write About Love which I finally acquired. Hence the choppiness). Great translation. Don鈥檛 care about reading in the original or what is lost in translation. Each translation adds to or improves the previous and this one reads pretty swell to me. Where do I go from here? Verlaine? Rimbaud? 惭补濒濒补谤尘茅? Pam Ayres? (No one鈥檚 on GR at the weekends anyway, I don鈥檛 have to bust too many vessels being erudite). Read this shit now.
February 23, 2024
Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil) is an unusual collection of poetry in its bold thematic exposition of taboo subjects and darker undertone. Being contrary to the accepted tradition of poetry, which Baudelaire dismissed as "pretty verses that would make their (meaning society) hypocrite lives even better", this work had to swim through the rough ocean to get to the safe shores in which it now safely remains.
History
Published in 1857 and at once judged as an immoral work, Baudelaire was accused of publishing a work which is "an insult to public decency". He and the publisher were brought before courts and was found guilty. Baudelaire was fined 300 francs, which was later reduced to 50 francs by the intervention of the Empress. Four years later, a second edition was published with the removal of six poems that were censored because they posed a threat to public morality.
Structure and Form
The collection of poetry is arranged into six sections: Spleen and Ideal, Parisian Scenes, Wine, Flowers of Evil, Revolt, and Death. The work differs in its darker themes from the other "pretty verses" that the public has hitherto read. It is one of its kind at the time with originality in concept, boldness in expression, modernity for its time, flexibility in the style of prose poem, and unconventional use of provocative imagery and unusual forms.
Themes
In Les Fleurs du Mal, Baudelaire exposes various themes. The uppermost is the quest for the ideal. Baudelaire looks to nature and women, the aesthetic beauty, for the ideal. But their veiled mysteries only allow for a glimpse. Frustration at his inability to understand the ideal and the suffering at the estrangement of the eternal truth increase his spleen.
Women play a major part in this collection. In fact, the "fair sex" is his muse. Baudelaire searches for his ideal in dark eroticism, in his lust and desires. But his search becomes futile as he experiences only a momentary transcendence wherein his senses undergo the beauty in its purest form. However, when the moment lapses, there follows the fall, the fall from the grace of God in his moral decadence.
However, decadence has its own attraction. It makes him suffer the caresses of wine, opium, and casual sex. Instead of soothing his spleen, this further aggravates his spiritual fall, and he fears that he was possessed, body and soul, by Satan. Being at a crossroad of spirituality and sensuality increase his despair and he seeks to escape from it.
The escape is the end, the death. Here he is plagued by suicidal longings. Intoxicants (wine and women), however, yet may prolong the ultimate end, dragging the sinner through self-degradation and moral decay.
Influence and Appreciation
Flaubert praised Baudelaire's uniqueness and thought that he brought a new life and force to Romanticism. Victor Hugo praised him announcing that Baudelaire created a "un nouveau frisson (a new thrill)"
Les Fleurs du Mal had a powerful impact on French symbolist poets as well as renowned poets across the channel. T.S. Eliot wrote, "I think that from Baudelaire I learned first, a precedent for the poetical possibilities, never developed by any poet writing in my own language, of the more sordid aspects of the modern metropolis, of the possibility of fusion between the sordidly realistic and the phantasmagoric, the possibility of the juxtaposition of the matter-of-fact and the fantastic".
Conclusion
This unusual collection was one not easy to understand. There is much depth, and one needs to reflect deeply on the meaning beyond mere words. The invoking of grotesque imagery was beautiful and horrifying at the same time. His prose creates so much imagery that the poems take the form of paintings. The darker tones, the grotesque imagery, and the indelicate expression perhaps weren't as welcoming as the pretty verse to my romantic mind. But its importance and the impact it had on the future generation of poets cannot be overlooked. Appreciated more than enjoyed.
More of my reviews can be found at
History
Published in 1857 and at once judged as an immoral work, Baudelaire was accused of publishing a work which is "an insult to public decency". He and the publisher were brought before courts and was found guilty. Baudelaire was fined 300 francs, which was later reduced to 50 francs by the intervention of the Empress. Four years later, a second edition was published with the removal of six poems that were censored because they posed a threat to public morality.
Structure and Form
The collection of poetry is arranged into six sections: Spleen and Ideal, Parisian Scenes, Wine, Flowers of Evil, Revolt, and Death. The work differs in its darker themes from the other "pretty verses" that the public has hitherto read. It is one of its kind at the time with originality in concept, boldness in expression, modernity for its time, flexibility in the style of prose poem, and unconventional use of provocative imagery and unusual forms.
Themes
In Les Fleurs du Mal, Baudelaire exposes various themes. The uppermost is the quest for the ideal. Baudelaire looks to nature and women, the aesthetic beauty, for the ideal. But their veiled mysteries only allow for a glimpse. Frustration at his inability to understand the ideal and the suffering at the estrangement of the eternal truth increase his spleen.
Women play a major part in this collection. In fact, the "fair sex" is his muse. Baudelaire searches for his ideal in dark eroticism, in his lust and desires. But his search becomes futile as he experiences only a momentary transcendence wherein his senses undergo the beauty in its purest form. However, when the moment lapses, there follows the fall, the fall from the grace of God in his moral decadence.
However, decadence has its own attraction. It makes him suffer the caresses of wine, opium, and casual sex. Instead of soothing his spleen, this further aggravates his spiritual fall, and he fears that he was possessed, body and soul, by Satan. Being at a crossroad of spirituality and sensuality increase his despair and he seeks to escape from it.
The escape is the end, the death. Here he is plagued by suicidal longings. Intoxicants (wine and women), however, yet may prolong the ultimate end, dragging the sinner through self-degradation and moral decay.
Influence and Appreciation
Flaubert praised Baudelaire's uniqueness and thought that he brought a new life and force to Romanticism. Victor Hugo praised him announcing that Baudelaire created a "un nouveau frisson (a new thrill)"
Les Fleurs du Mal had a powerful impact on French symbolist poets as well as renowned poets across the channel. T.S. Eliot wrote, "I think that from Baudelaire I learned first, a precedent for the poetical possibilities, never developed by any poet writing in my own language, of the more sordid aspects of the modern metropolis, of the possibility of fusion between the sordidly realistic and the phantasmagoric, the possibility of the juxtaposition of the matter-of-fact and the fantastic".
Conclusion
This unusual collection was one not easy to understand. There is much depth, and one needs to reflect deeply on the meaning beyond mere words. The invoking of grotesque imagery was beautiful and horrifying at the same time. His prose creates so much imagery that the poems take the form of paintings. The darker tones, the grotesque imagery, and the indelicate expression perhaps weren't as welcoming as the pretty verse to my romantic mind. But its importance and the impact it had on the future generation of poets cannot be overlooked. Appreciated more than enjoyed.
More of my reviews can be found at
May 1, 2021
Prof di francese delle superiori le chiedo scusa
December 9, 2020
Receuillement/ Blues
Blues, be cool, keep quiet, you mutha,
Intruder, second-story man, you enter with dusk,
It descends. It's here, an atmosphere
Surrounds the town. Builds some up, knocks me down.
Meanwhile the rabble ruled by body
Pleasures, thankless beasts overburdened
Build toward a bundle of remorse
In drugged dances. Blues, take my hand,
Come from them, come here. Look behind me
At the defunct years, at the balconies
Of heaven; in tattered copes, rise out
Of the waters of Regret. The sun sleeps
Moribund on a buttress; and listen,
My true-blues, hear dusk's sweet steps.
--see my trans of L'Impr茅vu below and on GoodReads, my writings
We have Baudelaire to thank for the world renown of our second-rate 19C poet Edgar Allan a Po-po-poe -dee-oh. (First rate storyteller, imitated fairly well by Dickens, once.) When a genius translates a less-than; other examples, TS Eliot's LaForgue? Moliere's anybody?
Baudelaire also took crap from the French Government same year Flaubert got off because of the rank of his father: his defense lawyer argued a guilty verdict would impugn Dr Flaubert, much as Lizzie Borden's father was used in her defense in the courtroom a few miles from my house. Since they lost the Flaubert case, they went with zeal after Baudelaire, managed to win, stop his publisher and him in their tracks until they dropped ten poems, later printed as Les 茅paves (below).
I think Charley B was a nasty little prick (a word I use advisedly, rarely, un petit bite); see his love poem to a corpse. But..and this is a bigger but(t) than Charley's鈥e was a genuine genius. Unfortunately. His first addresses me, his reader (well translated by R Lowell in "Imitations") as his Brother Hypocrite: insightful for our recent US presidential winner, who could start every rally so. (And of course, he calls me, his reader, his brother hypocrite--as I condescend from the great heights of my superior morality.)
I am sure I would be disgusted by Charley B0-bo-bo-dee-baudelaire. I would not vote for him, but I must vote for his disgusting verse. (One demurer, B himself says that writing draws one away from screwing, so he has created the disgust as an artistic enfranchisement.)
And, may I say having translated from a half dozen languages--and published them--Charley's Blues evoked a bit of his genius in me.
As an American "baby-boomer," I've never understood the Russian / Pushkin's obsession with 褋泻褍褔薪芯, boredom, but I find its source here in empire France, Russia's birth-culture (as ours is England). Peut 锚tre it's a remnant of upper class, Marie Antoinette France. Baudelaire's opening address to his reader ends with the descent of the Monster, "Ennui."
Gems throughout, almost any poem can be praised in its concentrated, tidal pull. Say, a little sheaf, Les 茅paves, "Wrecks" like the two schooners that rested on the shore of my childhood in Wiscasset, Maine (Hesper and the Luther Little). Awakening very late, he must pursue the sun god as s/he retires, loses out to the god Nuit, humid and full of chill. An odor of the tomb, the swampy residence of snails and toads. Among Les 茅paves, L'Impr茅vu:
Celim猫ne says, "my heart is good,
So naturally, God has made me Beautiful."
--Her heart! Contorted, smoked like a ham,
Finally softened by Eternal Flames!
A smoky gazer, who felt he was an Old Flame,
Said to the poor one collapsed in the shadows,
"Oh, so you can see this Creator of Beauty,
This Make-up Artist you celebrate."
Better than you, I know desires
That yawn day and night, lament and cry
Repeating, powerless, saying, "Yes, I plan
To be virtuous, very soon!"
Father Time in turn chimes low, "He is Ripe,
This Condemned. I've warned him, diseased in vain;
The man is blind, deaf, fragile as a wall
Gnawed by insects, residents."
Then someone comes, denies it all,
He says, laughing as ususal, "In my pyxides
You'll find enough communion wafers
To hold your cheery Black Mass.
Each of you have made a Temple in your Heart
For me, you ceremonially kiss my ass,
You worship Satan, my triumphant laugh
Enormous and nasty as the world.
Had you believed, you surprised hypocrites,
Who've mocked your Master, cheated on Him,
That it's natural for you to get the Double Prize:
Being Rich and Going to Heaven? *
The Old hunter, mortified for a long time,
Must still smell out the prey. I saw you
Hunt across the vastness, Companions
Of my too sad pleasures.
Across the breadth of the earth and rocks,
Across the confused heap of your ashes,
In a palace as great as my own, with a single
Tower which has no soft seats of stone,
Because it was built by Universal Sin,
And it contains my pride, my pain, and my fame."
--However, perched at the very top of the cosmos
An angel sounds the victory
Of those who say in their heart, "How Blessed are Thy Whips,
Lord! that pain, O Father, can be a blessing.
My soul is in your hands, not in this vain game,
And Your discretion is infinite."
The Trombones' sound is so delicious
In these solemn evenings of celestial wine-harvest
That resound as do their ecstasies
Of whom they sound the praises.
*Lines for the US "Christian Right" [who are neither Right nor Christian].
Ten of thirteen stanzas from "The Unforeseen," among the censored poems, Les Fleurs du Mal, ed Adam (Garnier: Paris, 1961)pp 194-196.
Or the art-painting in Prison, by Delacroix, Tasso on his bed, turning pages with his feet, inflamed with a terror of the dizzying (circular) stairs into the depths of his soul. Laughter fills the prison, with Doubt and Fear (again not unlike US politics 2016) circling with grimaces and wails, awakening from horrid dreams to find himself surrounded by four walls. The Real.
His wonderful praise of Daumier defends the comedic historian's mockery, not the harsh laugh of Satan, but the gentle satire of the benevolent. (Europeans often suspect laughter; only the English writer embraces it always...though not in the 2017 Nobel winner.)
Two short poems are among Les 茅paves, which he ends by addressing his harsh critic Monselet; but first, Part II of his Monster, the Macabre Nymph:
Fool, you should go straight to the Devil!
I'm even happy to go with you,
If not for this frightful haste
Which leaves me agitated. Then,
Well, better You--go straight to Hell! (Garnier, 199)
Then, finally, "A Frisky Cabaret" (un cabaret fol芒tre):
You who dote on skeletons
And detestable cliches
To spice your voluptuous taste,
(Stick to simple omelettes!)
Oh great Pharaoh, King Monselet!
In front of your unforeseen
Instruction, I dream of you: In a bar
At the cemetery, six feet deep.
Blues, be cool, keep quiet, you mutha,
Intruder, second-story man, you enter with dusk,
It descends. It's here, an atmosphere
Surrounds the town. Builds some up, knocks me down.
Meanwhile the rabble ruled by body
Pleasures, thankless beasts overburdened
Build toward a bundle of remorse
In drugged dances. Blues, take my hand,
Come from them, come here. Look behind me
At the defunct years, at the balconies
Of heaven; in tattered copes, rise out
Of the waters of Regret. The sun sleeps
Moribund on a buttress; and listen,
My true-blues, hear dusk's sweet steps.
--see my trans of L'Impr茅vu below and on GoodReads, my writings
We have Baudelaire to thank for the world renown of our second-rate 19C poet Edgar Allan a Po-po-poe -dee-oh. (First rate storyteller, imitated fairly well by Dickens, once.) When a genius translates a less-than; other examples, TS Eliot's LaForgue? Moliere's anybody?
Baudelaire also took crap from the French Government same year Flaubert got off because of the rank of his father: his defense lawyer argued a guilty verdict would impugn Dr Flaubert, much as Lizzie Borden's father was used in her defense in the courtroom a few miles from my house. Since they lost the Flaubert case, they went with zeal after Baudelaire, managed to win, stop his publisher and him in their tracks until they dropped ten poems, later printed as Les 茅paves (below).
I think Charley B was a nasty little prick (a word I use advisedly, rarely, un petit bite); see his love poem to a corpse. But..and this is a bigger but(t) than Charley's鈥e was a genuine genius. Unfortunately. His first addresses me, his reader (well translated by R Lowell in "Imitations") as his Brother Hypocrite: insightful for our recent US presidential winner, who could start every rally so. (And of course, he calls me, his reader, his brother hypocrite--as I condescend from the great heights of my superior morality.)
I am sure I would be disgusted by Charley B0-bo-bo-dee-baudelaire. I would not vote for him, but I must vote for his disgusting verse. (One demurer, B himself says that writing draws one away from screwing, so he has created the disgust as an artistic enfranchisement.)
And, may I say having translated from a half dozen languages--and published them--Charley's Blues evoked a bit of his genius in me.
As an American "baby-boomer," I've never understood the Russian / Pushkin's obsession with 褋泻褍褔薪芯, boredom, but I find its source here in empire France, Russia's birth-culture (as ours is England). Peut 锚tre it's a remnant of upper class, Marie Antoinette France. Baudelaire's opening address to his reader ends with the descent of the Monster, "Ennui."
Gems throughout, almost any poem can be praised in its concentrated, tidal pull. Say, a little sheaf, Les 茅paves, "Wrecks" like the two schooners that rested on the shore of my childhood in Wiscasset, Maine (Hesper and the Luther Little). Awakening very late, he must pursue the sun god as s/he retires, loses out to the god Nuit, humid and full of chill. An odor of the tomb, the swampy residence of snails and toads. Among Les 茅paves, L'Impr茅vu:
Celim猫ne says, "my heart is good,
So naturally, God has made me Beautiful."
--Her heart! Contorted, smoked like a ham,
Finally softened by Eternal Flames!
A smoky gazer, who felt he was an Old Flame,
Said to the poor one collapsed in the shadows,
"Oh, so you can see this Creator of Beauty,
This Make-up Artist you celebrate."
Better than you, I know desires
That yawn day and night, lament and cry
Repeating, powerless, saying, "Yes, I plan
To be virtuous, very soon!"
Father Time in turn chimes low, "He is Ripe,
This Condemned. I've warned him, diseased in vain;
The man is blind, deaf, fragile as a wall
Gnawed by insects, residents."
Then someone comes, denies it all,
He says, laughing as ususal, "In my pyxides
You'll find enough communion wafers
To hold your cheery Black Mass.
Each of you have made a Temple in your Heart
For me, you ceremonially kiss my ass,
You worship Satan, my triumphant laugh
Enormous and nasty as the world.
Had you believed, you surprised hypocrites,
Who've mocked your Master, cheated on Him,
That it's natural for you to get the Double Prize:
Being Rich and Going to Heaven? *
The Old hunter, mortified for a long time,
Must still smell out the prey. I saw you
Hunt across the vastness, Companions
Of my too sad pleasures.
Across the breadth of the earth and rocks,
Across the confused heap of your ashes,
In a palace as great as my own, with a single
Tower which has no soft seats of stone,
Because it was built by Universal Sin,
And it contains my pride, my pain, and my fame."
--However, perched at the very top of the cosmos
An angel sounds the victory
Of those who say in their heart, "How Blessed are Thy Whips,
Lord! that pain, O Father, can be a blessing.
My soul is in your hands, not in this vain game,
And Your discretion is infinite."
The Trombones' sound is so delicious
In these solemn evenings of celestial wine-harvest
That resound as do their ecstasies
Of whom they sound the praises.
*Lines for the US "Christian Right" [who are neither Right nor Christian].
Ten of thirteen stanzas from "The Unforeseen," among the censored poems, Les Fleurs du Mal, ed Adam (Garnier: Paris, 1961)pp 194-196.
Or the art-painting in Prison, by Delacroix, Tasso on his bed, turning pages with his feet, inflamed with a terror of the dizzying (circular) stairs into the depths of his soul. Laughter fills the prison, with Doubt and Fear (again not unlike US politics 2016) circling with grimaces and wails, awakening from horrid dreams to find himself surrounded by four walls. The Real.
His wonderful praise of Daumier defends the comedic historian's mockery, not the harsh laugh of Satan, but the gentle satire of the benevolent. (Europeans often suspect laughter; only the English writer embraces it always...though not in the 2017 Nobel winner.)
Two short poems are among Les 茅paves, which he ends by addressing his harsh critic Monselet; but first, Part II of his Monster, the Macabre Nymph:
Fool, you should go straight to the Devil!
I'm even happy to go with you,
If not for this frightful haste
Which leaves me agitated. Then,
Well, better You--go straight to Hell! (Garnier, 199)
Then, finally, "A Frisky Cabaret" (un cabaret fol芒tre):
You who dote on skeletons
And detestable cliches
To spice your voluptuous taste,
(Stick to simple omelettes!)
Oh great Pharaoh, King Monselet!
In front of your unforeseen
Instruction, I dream of you: In a bar
At the cemetery, six feet deep.
December 14, 2021
Les Fleurs du Mal or The Flowers of Evil or, let鈥檚 extrapolate here, The Beauty of Evil is a masterpiece of French literature which should have pride of place in any bookcase worth its name, right between Milton鈥檚 Paradise Lost and Dante鈥檚 Divine Comedy. For indeed the beauty of evil, what with its mephitic yet oh so alluring aroma, is exactly what this book is about鈥攁 collection of poems and elegies reflecting Baudelaire鈥檚 views on our poor human condition stemming mainly from our doomed lives upon which hovers like the sword of Damocles the inevitability of death, while all the while we keep on fooling ourselves by pursuing the ever so elusive quest for a perfect world, a perfect existence, and, dare I say it, immortality. Baudelaire鈥檚 answer to this plight of ours, tentative though it may be, is escapism鈥攑ure but mainly impure escapism鈥攚hich, under his pen, takes various forms, ranging from travels to drugs, sex to faith, sleep to contemplation鈥攍ike so many petals of the flowers of evil the author plucks off one after another in a fateful game of Loves me, Loves me not.
Needless to say that Les Fleurs du Mal isn鈥檛 a book for everyone, and that if 测辞耻鈥檙别 looking for a read to put a smile on your face, you鈥檇 do well to turn around and look somewhere else. It is fair to say that with his masterful poetry Baudelaire pierces not only our heart but our soul. His words undress us completely and let us see us for what we really are鈥攋ust human beings living our lives. Which, when we think about it, isn鈥檛 so bad. That is, as long as we keep remembering to put into practice this little quote from yet another master of his genre, 鈥淎ll we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.鈥� And indeed, it matters not how long we live, but how well we live. If anything, Les Fleurs du Mal taught me that much. Oh, and The Lord of the Rings, too, of course!
OLIVIER DELAYE
Author of the SEBASTEN OF ATLANTIS series
Needless to say that Les Fleurs du Mal isn鈥檛 a book for everyone, and that if 测辞耻鈥檙别 looking for a read to put a smile on your face, you鈥檇 do well to turn around and look somewhere else. It is fair to say that with his masterful poetry Baudelaire pierces not only our heart but our soul. His words undress us completely and let us see us for what we really are鈥攋ust human beings living our lives. Which, when we think about it, isn鈥檛 so bad. That is, as long as we keep remembering to put into practice this little quote from yet another master of his genre, 鈥淎ll we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.鈥� And indeed, it matters not how long we live, but how well we live. If anything, Les Fleurs du Mal taught me that much. Oh, and The Lord of the Rings, too, of course!
OLIVIER DELAYE
Author of the SEBASTEN OF ATLANTIS series
September 6, 2024
Truly a unique an haunting voice - a visionary poet who forces you to question all that you find comforting - immersion of the self into the torrent of humanity. Some of the poems in this book are very graphic; I would warn potential readers that this is not the type of book you want to read if you are feeling depressed. Would have loved to have heard Vincent Price read these poems as an audiobook.
Read
October 22, 2020賱丕 卮賷亍 賷購毓丕丿賱 賮賷 丕賱胤賵賱 丕賱兀賷丕賲 丕賱賲鬲毓孬乇丞
毓賳丿賲丕 賷乇夭丨 鬲丨鬲 乇賰丕賲 孬賯賷賱 賲賳 孬賱賵噩 丕賱爻賳賷賳
丕賱囟噩乇 鬲賱賰 丕賱孬賲乇丞 丕賱賲購乇丞 賱賱丕賲亘丕賱丕丞 丕賱賰卅賷亘丞
賵丕賮賰乇 亘賰賱 賲賳 賮賯丿 卮賷卅丕賸 賱丕 賷賲賰賳賴 鬲毓賵賷囟賴
亘丕賱匕賷賳 賷卮乇亘賵賳 丿賲賵毓賴賲 賵賷賲鬲氐賵賳 丌賱丕賲賴賲
賰賷鬲丕賲賶 丕賱匕卅亘丞 丕賱胤賷亘丞 丕賱賳丕丨賱賷賳 丕賱匕丕亘賱賷賳 賰丕賱兀夭賴丕乇
兀賮賱賳 丕乇丕賰賽 丕亘丿丕賸 廿賱丕 賮賷 丕賱兀亘丿賷丞..
兀賮賱賳 丕乇丕賰賽 賮賷 賲賰丕賳 亘毓賷丿 賲賳 賴賳丕..
亘毓丿 賮鬲乇丞 胤賵賷賱丞 兀賵 賯丿 賱丕 丕乇丕賰賽 賲胤賱賯丕賸
賱兀賳賷 賱丕 丕毓乇賮 廿賱賶 丕賷賳 鬲賴乇亘賷賳
賵兀賳鬲賽 賱丕 鬲毓乇賮賷賳 廿賱賶 兀賷賳 兀匕賴亘
賷丕 兀賳鬲賽 丕賱鬲賶 賰丕賳 賲賳 丕賱賲賲賰賳 兀賳 丕丨亘賴丕
賷丕 兀賳鬲賽 丕賱鬲賶 鬲毓乇賮賷賳 匕賱賰...
賵兀禺賷乇丕賸 賷丕 爻賷丿 "亘賵丿賱賷乇"...賴賱 丨賯丕賸 賱賱卮乇 兀夭賴丕乇 責!!!....
February 21, 2022
Tutti abbiamo letto e studiato i simbolisti al liceo, ma non tutti li abbiamo apprezzati. Come al caso mio, la sua poesia essendo cos矛 ricca di metafore a primo impatto mi 猫 sembrata davvero particolare e incomprensibile. Oggi, dopo aver riletto l鈥檌ntera raccolta poetica posso dire di aver letto dei versi cos矛 belli, che non era mai successo. Versi potenti, passionali e ricchi di significato. I suoi versi sono ricchi di metafora e contorcimenti letterali, ma 猫 pura magica. Il simbolismo con la sua poesia pura e ricca di simboli, ha creato una poesia cos矛 elevata, cos矛 sublime, cos矛 perfetta che 猫 davvero difficile spiegare a parole.
July 30, 2008
One of my favorite poets of all time.
Baudelaire emphasized above all the disassociated character of modern experience: the sense that alienation is an inevitable part of our modern world. In his prose, this complexity is expressed via harshness and shifts of mood.
The constant emphasis on beauty and innocence, even alongside the seamier aspects of humanity, reinforce an existentialist ideal that rejects morality and embraces transgression. Objects, sensations, and experiences often clash, implicitly rejecting personal experiences and memories; only operations of consciousness (e.g., revulsion and self-criticism) are valued and even exalted. Indeed, for Baudelaire, the shock of experiencing is the act of living.
Baudelaire's talent for poetry aside, his genius was to jolt the reader into this mindset, to feel what he wanted to feel and experience what he wanted to experience.
Baudelaire emphasized above all the disassociated character of modern experience: the sense that alienation is an inevitable part of our modern world. In his prose, this complexity is expressed via harshness and shifts of mood.
The constant emphasis on beauty and innocence, even alongside the seamier aspects of humanity, reinforce an existentialist ideal that rejects morality and embraces transgression. Objects, sensations, and experiences often clash, implicitly rejecting personal experiences and memories; only operations of consciousness (e.g., revulsion and self-criticism) are valued and even exalted. Indeed, for Baudelaire, the shock of experiencing is the act of living.
Baudelaire's talent for poetry aside, his genius was to jolt the reader into this mindset, to feel what he wanted to feel and experience what he wanted to experience.
January 21, 2019
La poes铆a no es mi fuerte, pero me gusta leerla de vez en cuando.
El contenido de este libro es muy diverso y eso es algo que se agradece.
No todo habla sobre el amor y el desamor, sino que habla de m煤ltiples temas que hacen que el libro sea m谩s atractivo.
Los poemas como tal me gustaron mucho, el como est谩n escritos, y los sentimientos que destilan es algo impresionante, que te deja los sentimientos a flor de piel.
Incluso habla del amor por los libros y a la literatura, critica a los estilos que en aquellos tiempos eran los que deb铆as adoptar para escribir, por lo que tambi茅n fue una herramienta de rebeld铆a en el que Charles no temi贸 expresar lo que sent铆a, bravo por ello.
El contenido de este libro es muy diverso y eso es algo que se agradece.
No todo habla sobre el amor y el desamor, sino que habla de m煤ltiples temas que hacen que el libro sea m谩s atractivo.
Los poemas como tal me gustaron mucho, el como est谩n escritos, y los sentimientos que destilan es algo impresionante, que te deja los sentimientos a flor de piel.
Incluso habla del amor por los libros y a la literatura, critica a los estilos que en aquellos tiempos eran los que deb铆as adoptar para escribir, por lo que tambi茅n fue una herramienta de rebeld铆a en el que Charles no temi贸 expresar lo que sent铆a, bravo por ello.
November 2, 2023
丿賵亘丕乇賴 賲蹖禺賵賳賲卮貙 丕夭 賴賲蹖賳 丕賲卮亘
Want to read
January 12, 2024I have been experimenting with a new feature in our C-LARA platform, where you now have the option of passing the text to DALL-E-3 and requesting an image to go on the front page. This worked fine the first twenty or so times, but when I gave it Baudelaire's poem "Recueillement", from this collection, I received the following error message:
________________
[However, a little later...]
I should know by now that it's always wise to see if an experiment can be replicated. When I tried to do the same thing a second time, I got this image:
Also an impressive response!
________________
[And after another couple of hours...]
I liked Dmitri's message #4 and wondered what C-LARA would make of his witty suggestion. is its little story with accompanying illustration. You will need to create a C-LARA account to access it, free and takes one minute.
Exception: Error code: 400 - {'error': {'code': 'content_policy_violation', 'message': 'Your request was rejected as a result of our safety system. Image descriptions generated from your prompt may contain text that is not allowed by our safety system. If you believe this was done in error, your request may succeed if retried, or by adjusting your prompt.', 'param': None, 'type': 'invalid_request_error'}}Well, it's hard to disagree. But what a clever AI to make that judgement call!
________________
[However, a little later...]
I should know by now that it's always wise to see if an experiment can be replicated. When I tried to do the same thing a second time, I got this image:
Also an impressive response!
________________
[And after another couple of hours...]
I liked Dmitri's message #4 and wondered what C-LARA would make of his witty suggestion. is its little story with accompanying illustration. You will need to create a C-LARA account to access it, free and takes one minute.
June 3, 2013
translated by Edna St. Vincent Millay & George Dillon
It's outrageous that this wonderful translation is out of print.
After looking at many versions (including Richard Howard, James McGowan, and Cyril Scott who was my second favourite) this was the only one with truly good poems which replicated the original structures and had the glittering night-magic of Baudelaire's sensual, sinister, romantic, gothic wonderland. Which would of course have something to do with one of the translators herself being a distinguished poet.
These are poetic translations rather than ones designed to reproduce the exact meanings line-by-line, but for the non-academic reader I think they are by far the most satisfying as poetry.
Female characters seem stronger than in other translations, undoubtedly Millay's work. One commentator in a source I now can't find says that in her translation of Baudelaire's women - often passive in the original - she finds a powerful active voice she only rarely displayed in her own poems.
I've taken a long time to finish Les Fleurs du Mal but this was largely because I despaired of how to describe Baudelaire's verse, something quite beyond my powers, and kept being distracted from reading by trying to find (im)possible phrases.
Some of the translations from this edition can be found , with a bit of patience, clicking and scrolling.
It's outrageous that this wonderful translation is out of print.
After looking at many versions (including Richard Howard, James McGowan, and Cyril Scott who was my second favourite) this was the only one with truly good poems which replicated the original structures and had the glittering night-magic of Baudelaire's sensual, sinister, romantic, gothic wonderland. Which would of course have something to do with one of the translators herself being a distinguished poet.
These are poetic translations rather than ones designed to reproduce the exact meanings line-by-line, but for the non-academic reader I think they are by far the most satisfying as poetry.
Female characters seem stronger than in other translations, undoubtedly Millay's work. One commentator in a source I now can't find says that in her translation of Baudelaire's women - often passive in the original - she finds a powerful active voice she only rarely displayed in her own poems.
I've taken a long time to finish Les Fleurs du Mal but this was largely because I despaired of how to describe Baudelaire's verse, something quite beyond my powers, and kept being distracted from reading by trying to find (im)possible phrases.
Some of the translations from this edition can be found , with a bit of patience, clicking and scrolling.
February 9, 2021
I hate movement for it displaces lines, And never do I weep and never do I laugh.
1.28.2021 Update:
It was a cosmic day and I found myself mute. I can say that despite emerging from some peril, verse translation remains crucial. I can't speak for other editions, or other translations, but I was urgently shaken by this. It was welcomed despite my tacit brush with the Terminal.
When my eyes, to this cat I love
Drawn as by a magnet's force,
Turn tamely back upon that appeal,
And when I look within myself,
I notice with astonishment
The fire of his opal eyes,
Clear beacons glowing, living jewels,
Taking my measure, steadily.
My (initial) amateur assessment is that the translation is to blame for my absence of astonishment. There's no way this could be the same genius who gave us Paris Spleen. Maybe I am but confused. Maybe the threads which shriek decay and ennui were of inadequate weight. Maybe my own disposition suffers from dread and I was left with a meh?
Perhaps I am inadequate. Perhaps I should pursue other editions and translators. I loved the allusion of street sweeps herding their storms. I love the self-deprecation. I just wanted more. Not the Absolute but more--on which to chew.
1.28.2021 Update:
It was a cosmic day and I found myself mute. I can say that despite emerging from some peril, verse translation remains crucial. I can't speak for other editions, or other translations, but I was urgently shaken by this. It was welcomed despite my tacit brush with the Terminal.
When my eyes, to this cat I love
Drawn as by a magnet's force,
Turn tamely back upon that appeal,
And when I look within myself,
I notice with astonishment
The fire of his opal eyes,
Clear beacons glowing, living jewels,
Taking my measure, steadily.
My (initial) amateur assessment is that the translation is to blame for my absence of astonishment. There's no way this could be the same genius who gave us Paris Spleen. Maybe I am but confused. Maybe the threads which shriek decay and ennui were of inadequate weight. Maybe my own disposition suffers from dread and I was left with a meh?
Perhaps I am inadequate. Perhaps I should pursue other editions and translators. I loved the allusion of street sweeps herding their storms. I love the self-deprecation. I just wanted more. Not the Absolute but more--on which to chew.
December 19, 2012
This is a step towards possession.
Certainly the possession does not last the entire way through, but even in the less interesting or repetitive poems there are some jarring lines, amplified by a soul in Heat.
Like any elevated piece of literature, Flowers of Evil consumed me to such an extent that at times I forgot I was reading words on a page, its intensity moving my mind into some unknown zone where images, thoughts, and recollections screamed by, colliding with each other. So, too, did I feel at times that even the writer himself was "not all there," taken away by a demon, merely the vehicle for some phantasm. Yes, Baudelaire sold me on his deal, not merely because of content or form, but because of the legitimacy and authenticity of his spirit that comes through them. At its best I lost the idea that Baudelaire was 鈥渨riting,鈥� or 鈥渃onstructing thoughts and ideas.鈥� More often I felt like I was seeing a living reality and the spirit behind it, the dreams he 鈥渒nows.鈥�
We can look at a whore and see nothing poetic just as we can look at the sun and see nothing poetic. But the poetic is everywhere and, for me, the more I can tap into, the better life is. Is it more and more rare to find a person who sees anything poetic in the sun? Is the modern mind still trying to convince itself that myth doesn鈥檛 work? Whatever one's answer to those questions, most will agree that it鈥檚 even rarer to find someone who sees anything POETIC in the heist, the hell, the holey handbag. And then even rarer yet again to find someone who can see the poetic in such things and communicate it to others on a convincing level. And then perhaps it鈥檚 only a very singular visionary who can not only see the poetic in such things, but communicate it in such a way that it creates its own inspiring beauty while remaining true to the original inspiration. Sure we have heists, whores, and holey handbags a dime a dozen, but do they even recognize their own beauty much? Are they as tuned in to their own spirit as Baudelaire was?
I hate cars, but I love to watch the rare person who is passionate and soulful about them. I don't read books on toe-picking, but show me someone passionate about their toe-picking and I'll gladly sit down beside them to observe and ask engaging questions, join in a little. Baudelaire. Hate his whoring if you will, but there is a passion, a depth, a profound nature to it that would have me in rapid pursuit to follow him anywhere. And the guy never seems disappointed! That is what twists the knife in me time and time again!
But he鈥檚 not just writing of whore houses and opium dens, telling us of their ugly and vile colors. No! He鈥檚 not just heading out on a heartless, gutless, mindless hedonistic romp. No! This is the debased as Ideal, wrapping the demon up in lovely meter, rhyme, and high metaphor, carrying the gutter into the heavens! The Saint of Whores! The Divinity of Syphilis! The God of Pooping your Pants! I love it. He loves! Not foul for a moment! There is goodness in it all!!!! I can鈥檛 even crystalize Baudelaire without sounding silly! To find Beauty in the Gutter! This is the Man! Far too much of it to originate from mere constructs and ideas. No, there are demons and gods at work.
Baudelaire wouldn鈥檛 even spit on a Renoir painting. He鈥檇 just undress it and fly. The Corpse on the lip, a taste from God. Possessed. I can not get so close to It, except through Baudelaire. Beautiful Ugliness. Goodness. When literature helps you live a new life, or at least revitalize it.
Certainly the possession does not last the entire way through, but even in the less interesting or repetitive poems there are some jarring lines, amplified by a soul in Heat.
Like any elevated piece of literature, Flowers of Evil consumed me to such an extent that at times I forgot I was reading words on a page, its intensity moving my mind into some unknown zone where images, thoughts, and recollections screamed by, colliding with each other. So, too, did I feel at times that even the writer himself was "not all there," taken away by a demon, merely the vehicle for some phantasm. Yes, Baudelaire sold me on his deal, not merely because of content or form, but because of the legitimacy and authenticity of his spirit that comes through them. At its best I lost the idea that Baudelaire was 鈥渨riting,鈥� or 鈥渃onstructing thoughts and ideas.鈥� More often I felt like I was seeing a living reality and the spirit behind it, the dreams he 鈥渒nows.鈥�
We can look at a whore and see nothing poetic just as we can look at the sun and see nothing poetic. But the poetic is everywhere and, for me, the more I can tap into, the better life is. Is it more and more rare to find a person who sees anything poetic in the sun? Is the modern mind still trying to convince itself that myth doesn鈥檛 work? Whatever one's answer to those questions, most will agree that it鈥檚 even rarer to find someone who sees anything POETIC in the heist, the hell, the holey handbag. And then even rarer yet again to find someone who can see the poetic in such things and communicate it to others on a convincing level. And then perhaps it鈥檚 only a very singular visionary who can not only see the poetic in such things, but communicate it in such a way that it creates its own inspiring beauty while remaining true to the original inspiration. Sure we have heists, whores, and holey handbags a dime a dozen, but do they even recognize their own beauty much? Are they as tuned in to their own spirit as Baudelaire was?
I hate cars, but I love to watch the rare person who is passionate and soulful about them. I don't read books on toe-picking, but show me someone passionate about their toe-picking and I'll gladly sit down beside them to observe and ask engaging questions, join in a little. Baudelaire. Hate his whoring if you will, but there is a passion, a depth, a profound nature to it that would have me in rapid pursuit to follow him anywhere. And the guy never seems disappointed! That is what twists the knife in me time and time again!
But he鈥檚 not just writing of whore houses and opium dens, telling us of their ugly and vile colors. No! He鈥檚 not just heading out on a heartless, gutless, mindless hedonistic romp. No! This is the debased as Ideal, wrapping the demon up in lovely meter, rhyme, and high metaphor, carrying the gutter into the heavens! The Saint of Whores! The Divinity of Syphilis! The God of Pooping your Pants! I love it. He loves! Not foul for a moment! There is goodness in it all!!!! I can鈥檛 even crystalize Baudelaire without sounding silly! To find Beauty in the Gutter! This is the Man! Far too much of it to originate from mere constructs and ideas. No, there are demons and gods at work.
Baudelaire wouldn鈥檛 even spit on a Renoir painting. He鈥檇 just undress it and fly. The Corpse on the lip, a taste from God. Possessed. I can not get so close to It, except through Baudelaire. Beautiful Ugliness. Goodness. When literature helps you live a new life, or at least revitalize it.
September 27, 2016
How to describe this volume of poetry? Avant-garde, modernistic, innovative, original? Yes, all of those, and to use a modern slang word, edgy. So edgy in fact, for mid 19th century France, that Napoleon III's government prosecuted him for "an insult to public decency". Six of the poems were banned until 1949. Don't worry; by today's standards they are not so alarming.
October 21, 2020
Un incre铆ble poemario.
No hay mayor infierno que el que se vive sin saberlo.
No hay mayor infierno que el que se vive sin saberlo.
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