"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?

Setting aside for a moment Mauriac's religious beliefs (and it is fully possible to enjoy his work without sharing his sect) Francois Mauriac was an amazingly skillful writer. His short novels are stylistically conservative-- a straightforward realism rules--and, as far as I know, always comparatively short. But within those formal limits, his ability to offer believable and thoughtful moral dramas without ever lapsing into tendentiousness is remarkable. They have their own sort of gravity, a seriousness that reminds me, oddly enough, of George Eliot, though one of Eliot's works is about as long as 8 or 9 of Mauriac's. Technically what I most admire is Mauriac's ability to represent the passing of time. Even "represent" is too distant a word really; it's as if he captures the sensation of passing time. This edition is a great bargain. It offers a large selection of the complete texts of several important works at a reasonable price. If people 100 years from now are still reading novels they're going to wonder what sort of morons we were to allow such accomplished works to fall into such relative obscurity.

Mauriac's writings are beautiful, Christian, and highly charged emotionally, without succumbing to sentimentalism. The French countryside, the bougoise, are both transformed by Mauriac into celestial images of piercing love. This work contains four of his best novels, including the absolutely brilliant "Woman of the Pharisees" and tragically dark "Genetrix." Francois Mauriac is one of the greatest Christian authors of the 20th or any century, and The Mauriac Reader a superb introduction to his craft. In short, if you love literature, get this one.

I can't believe, I REFUSE to believe, that this book is not in print. Out of all the Doors rehashed drunken Jim tales and bad poetry insights (with a few notable exceptions), this was the best Doors book around. This is where Jim's poetry, prose, attitude and expression developed, improved and kicked rear in the whole world: HIS MUSIC. The lyrics are the best writing of Morrison hands down. I'll take Moonlight Drive or The End or Indian Summer or End Of The Night over anything in that Lords and the New Creatures book anyday! Bring this one back, publishers! NOW!

Wallace Fowlie's translation of Rimbaud's complete poeticworks, together with a selection of Rimbaud's letters, provides themost complete and reliable English translation of Rimbaud's poetry and a useful companion to the many books on Rimbaud's life. While Fowlie's translations are workmanlike and somewhat unimaginative, they are generally faithful to the original French text. Moreover, because the original French version and the English translation are on facing pages, the reader can easily compare Fowlie's translation with the reader's own understanding and interpretation of the French text. In this respect, the book is particularly useful if you have some French fluency.

All translations are, by their nature, inauthentic since there is never a perfect correspondence between the resonant images and meanings of the original language and the new language into which a text is translated. Translation is, as one critic has said, "like kissing someone through a veil"; the sensations (meanings) of the original are occluded by the translative process. Recognizing this inevitable deficiency, all that a reader can ask is that a translation approximate, as closely as possible, the linguistic meaning of the original. Fowlie has achieved this, more so than many other translators of Rimbaud, who have corrupted the integrity of Rimbaud's original meanings by their own creative and symbolistic interpretive renderings.

Fowlie also has provided solid translations of Rimbaud's important letters, particularly the letters of May, 1871, to George Izambard and Paul Demeny which articulate Rimbaud's precocious and iconoclastic aesthetic view of the role of the poet. If the book has any real shortcoming, it is the truncated and relatively unintersting biographical section and a lack of detailed notes. However, those failings can be excused by the fact that Wylie's book achieves its main objective--bringing a complete text of Rimbaud's poems to the English speaking world. If you are studying Rimbaud and the biographical details of his early life, and you cannot read the original French, Wylie's collection is indispensable

Wallace Fowlie's translation of Rimbaud's complete poeticworks, together with a selection of Rimbaud's letters, provides themost complete and reliable English translation of Rimbaud's poetry and a useful companion to the many books on Rimbaud's life. While Fowlie's translations are workmanlike and somewhat unimaginative, they are generally faithful to the original French text. Moreover, because the original French version and the English translation are on facing pages, the reader can easily compare Fowlie's translation with the reader's own understanding and interpretation of the French text. In this respect, the book is particularly useful if you have some French fluency.

All translations are, by their nature, inauthentic since there is never a perfect correspondence between the resonant images and meanings of the original language and the new language into which a text is translated. Translation is, as one critic has said, "like kissing someone through a veil"; the sensations (meanings) of the original are occluded by the translative process. Recognizing this inevitable deficiency, all that a reader can ask is that a translation approximate, as closely as possible, the linguistic meaning of the original. Fowlie has achieved this, more so than many other translators of Rimbaud, who have corrupted the integrity of Rimbaud's original meanings by their own creative and symbolistic interpretive renderings.

Fowlie also has provided solid translations of Rimbaud's important letters, particularly the letters of May, 1871, to George Izambard and Paul Demeny which articulate Rimbaud's precocious and iconoclastic aesthetic view of the role of the poet. If the book has any real shortcoming, it is the truncated and relatively unintersting biographical section and a lack of detailed notes. However, those failings can be excused by the fact that Wylie's book achieves its main objective--bringing a complete text of Rimbaud's poems to the English speaking world. If you are studying Rimbaud and the biographical details of his early life, and you cannot read the original French, Wylie's collection is indispensable

I ... found Fowlie's over-literal translations ugly and lame. But I think this may be deliberate. The unbeautifulness of the translations forces you back to the exquisite French original. It's a joy to have these poems as Rimbaud wrote them, and a bilingual edition is a must for the non-French-reader. If you want a beautiful English translation, I recommend reading Paul Schmidt's in conjunction with this one.

This year I am using Jean Racine's "Phaedra" as the one non-classical text in my Classical Greek and Roman Mythology Class (yes, I know, "Classical" makes "Greek and Roman" redundant, but it was not my title). In Greek mythology, Phaedra was the half-sister of the Minotaur who was married to Theseus after the hero abandoned her sister Ariadne (albeit, according to some versions of what happened in Crete). Phaedra fell in love with her step-son Hippolytus, who refused her advances. Humiliated, she falsely accused him of having raped her.

My students read "Phaedra" after Euripides's "Hippolytus" as part of an analogy criticism assignment, in which they compare/contrast the two versions, which are decidedly different, to say the least. In the "original" Greek version Hippolytus is a follower of Artemis, and the jealous Aphrodite causes his stepmother to fall in love with him. Phaedra accuses Hippolytus of rape and then hangs herself; Theseus banished his son who is killed before Artemis arrives to tell the truth. In Racine's version Hippolytus is a famous hater of women who falls in love with Aricia, a princess of the blood line of Athens. When false word comes that Theseus is dead, Phaedra moves to put her own son on the throne. In the end the same characters end up dead, but the motivations and other key elements are different.

While I personally would not go so far as to try and argue how Racine's neo-classical version represents the France of 1677, I have found that comparing and contrasting the two versions compels students to think about the choices each dramatist has made. Both the similarities and the differences between "Hippolytus" and "Phaedra" are significant enough to facilitate this effort. Note: Other dramatic versions of this myth include Seneca's play "Phaedra," "Fedra" by Gabriele D'Annunzio, "Thesee" by Andrea Gide, and "The Cretan Woman" by Robinson Jeffers.

if wallace fowlie was going to write a book about the similarities between arthur rimbaud and jim morrison, couldn't he have at the very least learned just a few things about morrison and wrote some new thoughts or little known facts about rimbaud, rather than just cutting and pasting from his old study of the surrealist legend? anyone who is even mildly acquainted with his work on the adolescent rimbaud will have at first a strange but strong sensation of deja vu while reading this book, and if they have a decent memory, will realize that most of the passages in this book were lifted from his earlier work. some people will see this as acceptable because most of the info and commentary is poignant and accurate (if not very penetrating and a tad superficial), but i find it a little disrespectful to the reader. as if we're not going to notice it when he rewrites, word by word, his previous work. it does have it's merits, and it is fairly entertaining to read his accounts of college lectures given on the two poets of youthful rebellion and the ideological similarities between the 60's counterculture and the philosophy of the surrealists, but there simply isn't enough substantial, original stuff in the book to make it truly memorable. it is worth reading, but only just.

Wallace Fowlie, a French scholar, translator and commentator on many French poets, has written this short book on the connections between the lives and writings of Rimbaud and Morrison, two symbols of youthful, creative rebellion who lived more than a century apart. Unfortunately, while the short memoir of how Fowlie first came to connect these two figures is interesting and worthy of a short journalistic piece, the bulk of this book contains nothing more than truncated and regurgitated biographical sketches of Rimbaud and Morrison and disparate commentary on some of their writing.

Fowlie, who published an English translation of Rimbaud's collected poems in 1966, first heard of Morrison when he received a letter from him in 1968 thanking him for the English translation. Morrison implied that Rimbaud was an important writer for him: "I don't read French that easily . . . I am a rock singer and your book travels around with me." Fowlie didn't know of Morrison until, many years later, he heard some of the music and lyrics of The Doors and recognized the influence of Rimbaud on the writing of Morrison. Fowlie's memoir relates how his discovery of these connections led to a series of lectures on Rimbaud and Morrison, lectures which were (not surprisingly!) received with enthusiasm and interest by his young college students at Duke and elsewhere.

Fowlie's discussion of Rimbaud's poetry, in addition to being cursory, can only be understood with a copy of his poems close at hand; without reading the poems in their entirety, Fowlie's commentary is largely unintelligible. With respect to Morrison, Fowlie does nothing more than regurgitate biographical details gleaned from other authors and discuss a few of Morrison's poems. Again, understanding the discussion of the poems suffers if you don't have the texts of Morrison's poems available.

While Fowlie's prose is wonderful and his brief anecdote of the way that Morrison and Rimbaud connected in Fowlie's own life interesting, the bulk of the book in unremarkable and derivative.

Not only do Jim and Arthur have unbelivable talent, but thier lives are practicaly parallel. Startng from the lack of a father as children these men have lived similar lives. A well written book, "Rebel as Poet" displays this fact very well.

This is a book that is supposed to be works of surrealist poets, but not all of it is. This is a tough book to read at any level. It makes it ten times worse to read if you really don't like/understand poetry. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, unless of course that person has a great appreciation for French poetry.