Baudelaire is credited, along with Whitman and Dickinson, with being the inventor of modern poetry. I wish someone would actually explain why modern poetry begins with him. (email anyone?)

But this book really is great. Get the Everyman's Pocket Poet's version. It's got all (or almost all, I haven't counted) of Baudelaire's masterpiece "Les Fleur Du Mal," in a good translation by Richard Howard (though also check out Norman Shapiro's). And it has selections from Michael Hamburger's wonderful translation of Baudelaire's prose poems, "Le Spleen Du Paris." The best of these is "GET DRUNK," or "Enivrez-vous!" It begins:

One should always be drunk. That's all that matters; that's our one imperative need. So as not to feel Time's horrible burden that breaks your shoulders and bows you down, you must get drunk without ceasing. ....

Baudelaire was full of dark energy like that. It disgusts and attracts. When it gets tiresome--and, like too much honey and too much Delacroix, reading about maggots eating lovers' flesh, will get tiresome--just put it down. When you pick it up you'll get some fresh insights. How fresh? As fresh as the in simile B. uses in "the Vampire": "bind[ing] me . . . as gambler to his winning streak." Nicely done. Plus the book is small so you can sneak it into work and easily goof off.

this translation was produced by a contemporory American poet Richard Howard, whose poems were included in the Norton Anthology of English Poetry. - English is my third language. - I agree with the review of Howard's version in 'Baudelaire in English'.

the "Everyman's" series is the best stocking stuffers ever created. I am a bit of a Baudelaire buff, and I must say, this small version is perhaps my favorite. There is not much else to say. I have spent the time sorting through the poorly translated, badly misquoted versions of Flowers of Evil. Learn from my mistake. Pass by the frilly, big, seventeen color dustjacket editions and buy this little guy. It will not dissapoint you. Good day.

"All the bourgeois fools who incessantly utter the words immoral, immorality, morality in art, and other silly things remind me of Louise Villedieu, a five franc whore who, when accompanying me one day to the Louvre - where she had never been - started blushing and covering her face; and pulling all the time at my sleeve, she asked, before the immortal statues and paintings, how people could put such obscenities on public display" ~ Mon Coeur mis a nu (My heart laid bare)

The ministry of interior declared in 1857 that "Les Fleurs du Mal" constituted "an act of defiance in contempt of the laws which safeguard religion and morality" and both Baudelaire, the publisher and the printer was convicted on grounds of immorality, and all available copies of "Les Fleurs du Mal" was confiscated.

The courts verdict stated that whatever mitigating comments "Les Fleurs du Mal" might contain, nothing could dissipate the harmful effects of the images Mr. Baudelaire presents to the reader, and which, in the incriminated poems, inevitably lead to the arousal of the senses by crude and indecent realism.

"You know that I have only considered literature and the arts as pursuing a goal unrelated to morality, and that the beauty of conception and style alone are enough for me." ~ Baudelaire

The ban on the censored poems was not lifted until May 31, 1949!!

With "Les Fleurs du Mal" Baudelaire came to spearhead the Symbolist movement as a reaction against the prevailing naturalism in literature at the time. Baudelaire sublimated debauchery, spleen and hideousness to an art of studied elegance, but people often forget the wicked sense of cynical, black humour permeating many of his poems:

"I've just seen an adorable woman. She has the most beautiful eyes in the world - which she draws with a matchstick - the most provocative eyes - the brilliance of which is the clue solely to the khol on her eyelid - a voluptuous mouth - drawn with cochineal - and, on top of that, not a hair of her own - in short 'A GREAT ARTIST !` "

In Baudelaire's own words "A translation of poetry... may be an enticing dream, but can only ever be a dream" and therefore this dual-language book of "The Flowers of Evil/Les Fleurs du Mal" definetly is the one to get...

Les Fleurs du Mal is a bittersweet compilation of poems by Charles Baudelaire, the master of forlorn sentiments who lived in Paris around 1850. Unique to his style is a juxtaposition of the realm of nature with that of the modern city (Paris). Baudelaire, like Gaugin, was one of the few artists of his cohort who had traveled out of his usual frame of reference (from Paris to the islands of La Reunion and back to Paris again), instilling in his vision a lust for the exotic and for realms of simple enchantment. While many perceive his works as pessimistic, it seems to me that the elements of humour and sarcasm woven throughout his works reveal an underlying transcendence over any serious lugubrious entrapment. The French-English text here helps to expose what may have been lost or altered in the translation. Ultimately the poems and their English counterparts here maintain the glory of Baudelaire- dark and uncanny rhymes often intertwined with florid beauty and intimations of the untarnished. A timeless works, the Flowers of Evil is sublimely written.

Very interesting item! The best works by Charles Baudelaire in French original and in English translation. Except the great qualities of Baudelaire's poetry the value of this book is also in the possibility to compare original with translation. There are many academic disputes about translating of poetry. This book is a fine example of an effort to offer every reader a chance to judge for himself about quality of each and every translation. "Flowers of evil" are enough for five stars themselves. What to say then about this book which offers double-language edition of the forst modern collection of poetry and also some additional texts?

En Paris un poeta al salir de una orgia Angeles aleteando en la bestia veia Noble vision ustorio de este bardo maldito que canta, en tono grave, su fulgor infinito

Yo tambien se visiones en mi mente precita Un tropel de mirages sin descanso palpita Querubines-demonios,grande veldad...conmociones, Que harian estreecer los duros corazones Y en el mortal ignoto un angel canta No ha elevado un estigma,una vision que espanta? Alguna vez poeta, aunque el simple no creer

En el angel dormido una bestia loquea (patea)

Autor: Dr.Jesus Garcia Vazques

Symbolism is one of those schools of poetry that seems to fallen out of favor. Baudelaire's own particular brand is harsh, revolutionary, and sensual. This is not frilly love poetry but the work of a great decadent of mid-nineteenth century France. While much is lost in translation, his poetry still rings quite powerfully and is as relevant today as it ever will be. This is one of the books that helped found later surrealist movements along with the work of Rimbaud and Marquis De Sade. A great beautiful book dealing with the great temptations and filth of existence, in essence that which brings on evil.

The translation here strays a bit from the original for the sake of making it rhyme. Although this may raise the eyebrows of some purists, I feel that the english version has charms of its own. The design of this book is really outstanding, and the old duo-tone photographs used to illustrate it are quite poetic in their own right, and seem even more so as a result of the way they are combined with the text. The book as a whole evokes images of a lost paradise, which I have never seen expressed so well outside of the writings of Proust. I even like the way it smells! This would make an excellent gift for any lover of poetry or photography.

This book is not only gorgeous to browse through yet exceptionally poetic and useful at the same time. It is a bilingual book- french and english with absolutely fabulous illustrations to aid the imagination. Sucha lovely work and an intriguing way to involve both adults and children into Baudelaire's complex poetry. Well done!

Charles Baudelaire, in his Little Poems in Prose--at least in this translation, I may say--, speaks as if he were thrown into a wind of excitement and enthusiasm in one whirl of experience, and then, no sooner does he do so, that he is ready to move on, and experience something else.

I find thst this book is published no where else at this present time, than through the Teitan Press; Crowley has some poems in translation of Baudelaire in his Collected Works, but this present edition (Little Poems in Prose) is all in prose. Thus, it is contained no where else, as yet.

Baudelaire's Petite Poèmes en prose was published posthumously in 1869 and was later, as intended by the author, entitled Le Spleen de Paris. Baudelaire did not live long enough to bring these poems together in a single volume, but it is clear from his correspondence that the work he envisaged was both a continuation of, and a radical departure from, Les Fleurs du mal.

Some of the texts may be regarded as authentic poems in prose, while others are closer to exquisite miniature prose narratives. The setting is primarily urban, with the focus on crowds and the suffering lives they contain: a broken-down street acrobat (Le Vieux Satimbanque), a hapless street trader (Le Mauvais Vitrier), the poor staring at the wealthy in their opulent cafés (Le Vieux des pauvres), the deranged (Mademoisele Bistouri) and the derelict (Assommons les pauvres!), and, in the final text (Les Bon Chiens), the pariah dogs that scurry and scavenge through the streets of Brussels.

Not only is the subject matter of the prose poems essentially urban, but the form itself, "musical but without rhythm and rhyme, both supple and staccato," is said to derive from "frequent contact with enormous cities, from the junction of their innumerable connections."

In its deliberate fragmentation and its merging of the lyrical with the sardonic, Le Spleen de Paris may be regarded as one of the earliest and most successful examples of a specifically urban writing, the textual equivalent of the city scenes of the Impressionists, embodying in its poetics of sudden and disorienting encounter that ambiguous "heroism of modern life" that Baudelaire celebrated in his art criticism.

This bilingual edition (masterfully translated by Norman Shapiro) carefully transposes the French originals into a formal, poetic English idiom, which captures both the meaning and the music of Baudelaire, the fallen angel and champion of evil. Though conventional in terms of his metrics and poetic forms, Baudelaire is arguably the first great Modernist poet. One dives into the murky miasmata of these pages to discover a world of perverse pleasures, wrathful and sordid imagery and unregenerate vice glorified by one of its most eloquent spokesmen. Baudelaire, a tortured personality, in which profound guilt is contraposed with carnal lust, Satanism, delight in cruelty and a longing for hell, is one of the towering giants of modern European literature. His poetry is a bitter fruit that few can savour with impunity.

Shapiro manages to capture Baudelaire's essence without sacrificing his form. These versions read like English poetry. They are the best I have read--and I have read them all, past and present. Highly recommended for admirers of Baudelaire and students of the craft (and art!) of literary translation.

This book has provided me with a delightful first experience with Charles Baudelaire's poetry. This publisher has created a book that has managed to connect image and text quite compellingly. Although my grasp of French is not sophisticated, I enjoyed looking at the work in its original language as I read it in English. The poetry's juxtaposition of etchings by Odilon Redon creates an interesting tone that also enabled me to appreciate the beautiful severity of the writing. I believe this is a great book and I fully recommend it.

This book has provided me with a delightful first experience with Charles Baudelaire's poetry. This publisher has created a book that has managed to connect image and text quite compellingly. Although my grasp of French is not sophisticated, I enjoyed looking at the work in its original language as I read it in English. The poetry's juxtaposition of etchings by Odilon Redon creates an interesting tone that also enabled me to appreciate the beautiful severity of the writing. I believe this is a great book and I fully recommend it.

With clarity and verve and energy, Dead Time updates Benjamin for the twenty-first century, illuminating how Baudelaire and Flaubert speak to the technology-laden twenty-first century.

The book unfolds with equal aplomb in the subjects' time and our own: time out of hand -- caused by war, personal trauma, and the persistent anxiety over fears of terrorism -- can be regained through an understanding of Flowers of Evil and Madame Bovary. You may not believe that nineteenth-century texts can hold the key, but they just may. Marder's book, written before 9/11 but with the event seemingly in mind at each turn, begins the work.