The only important novelist France has produced since World War Two. Julien Green would be the other one if he weren't an American.

Yes, Baudelaire, himself told to his friend Troubat:"These are The flowers of evil again, but with more freedom,much more detailes, and much more mockery". Noone before Baudelaire has ever concepted the poem in prose which would express so many special, original and protesting sensations. This urban, very personal poetry is a product of the metropolitan noisy atmosphere, and as it is surrounded with fog of overpopulated, but yet unexplored areas.This poetry expresses more than the actual meaning of the words is telling.Spleen is created of prose and pure poetry, of the reflection of the analytical spirit and intuitive introspection.The apostle of pain and depression,Baudelaire is the one who analyzes his own and other people's sins, expresses himself as a moralist in this book as well.

Charles Baudelaire's Paris Spleen is a wonderfully original work, one happily outside the framework of American literature and its broad range of sensibilities. Most notably, these 51 short prose poems illustrate how truth, and the most accurate perceptions of life possible, can be reached purely by honing the senses and then melding them with the more passive facilities of the mind; logic and rational thinking, as demonstrated here, are for the vulgar, those in denial, those simply unable to accept the very rich, very broad, self-evident smorgasbord of life. Baudelaire, both a tragic and a comedic clown, also effortlessly illustrates how melancholy and joy are by no means mutually exclusive categories of human feeling and experience.

Set largely against specifically autumnal landscapes, our wandering poet indulges in "the mysterious and aristocratic pleasure of watching" whenever he is not a direct participant in the events these visionary pieces describe. Solitary, 'fluent in outrage,' cranky, self-tormented, lovelorn, misanthropic, and pedagogical by turns, these pieces find the poet stalking bereaved widows, peering unseen through the candle-lit windows of neighbor's homes, asking philosophical questions of "enigmatical" strangers, shunning crowds, luxuriating in midnight solitude, greeting the twilight with a bow, reading the time of day in a cat's eyes, "suffering before Beauty" in all its forms, futilely but vocally castigating inflexible Dame Nature, advising the world on the varieties of glorious drunkenness, dreaming of tempting devils, beating the poor, pitying aged, poverty-stricken circus performers, rebelling against infinity, arguing with mistresses, and listening, eavesdropping, and relentlessly observing wherever he goes.

Not surprisingly, the poet's vision of urban Paris lies somewhere between the multiple canvases of Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec; garishly colored, slightly grotesque, heavily populated with heavy, heaving women and friable grande dames, Baudelaire's city is a fluid and respiring stage for life's pantomime, open to and allowing for all combinations and possibilities. By contrast, his autumnal countryside is a place of relative purity, where the poet wanders alone under piercing blue skies and roaming, shadow-casting clouds.

In one of the more hallucinatory episodes, the poet, "under a vast gray sky, on a vast and dusty plain" comes upon a short procession of men with "worn and serious faces," each of whom carries a very large, monstrous chimera on his back, the muscles, tendons and limbs of the beasts wrapped tightly around them. None the wiser after his inevitable questions, the poet observes that "under the depressing dome of the sky" the men moved past and beyond him, each "with the resigned look of men who are condemned to hope forever."

Paris Spleen is a wise, serious, and occasionally dour work. But if its only sometimes-tragic underpinnings and conclusions are embraced by the reader, then its vibrant, bawdy, colorful, and transcendent aspect will reveal itself shamelessly in turn. Baudelaire is so confident, unselfconscious, and plain-spoken that his perceptions are remarkably easy to visualize, his emotions as expressed easy to share and make one's own. It's a rare book that is as multi-prismed as this.

Baudelaire implies that if man could accept mortality, reasonably subdue his ego, and curb his more flagrant dreams, life would fall into the glittering, far from perfect, but certainly tolerable and potentially enjoyable miracle it really is. The poet seems to reach the same conclusion about life that Isak Dinsen does at the end of Out Of Africa: man must accept, without exclusion, every facet, aspect, element, and component of existence before existence-before life--will give anything back to man.

In no way a despairing book, Paris Spleen is a sheer pleasure to read, contemplate, discuss, laugh over, and digest. Readers will carry their copy in their back pocket until it falls into tatters, and force copies on friends, family, and strangers. Beautifully translated by Louise Varese. Highly recommended, especially to the non-creative who would like to see, however briefly, as a poet sees.

The book that helped me overcome my prejudice against poetry--I carried "Paris Spleen" around with me for a couple of weeks after I first read it, and kept turning back to certain poems as I went about my daily errands. Even though it's nearly 150 years old it seems as timely and contemporary as it must have seemed when it was first published--absolutely top-notch.

These metaphysical wet dreams will delight sulky teenagers and juveniles of all ages, but adults will agree with Rimbaud's own judgement: "It's all slop." The Varese translation leaves most of the (rumored) music behind in the original French; what remains is the prose end of the prose-poem equation. I found these pieces supremely boring. Perhaps if I cared about the Rimbaud myth I would read these with different eyes-- but I don't, and therefore what I find is faux passion and histrionic hormones. Add a stilted English to this mixture and the result is malodorous. Not recommended.

The works of Rimbaud have become as famous for the character of the writer as for the writings themselves. However, with any work of art, the true test will be the content of the work rather than the person behind the pen. That said, the prose poetry of this child-man artist was an attempt to break away from all types of oppression in all forms (as viewed by Rimbaud): tradition, social expectation, as well as literary convention. First and foremost, Rimbaud was a thinker and then a writer but, unlike many philosophical writers (verses aesthetic writers, i.e.--Proust), he rarely lapses into didacticism. As for the content of his writing, one must consider that Rimbaud prefaced many literary movements, including psychoanalysis in his attempt to let one's "true self" write by "deranging the senses"; his focus on synesthesia predated the Dada movement and allowed him to become a godfather to the Surrealists; his themes of impotence and suffering foreshadowed the existentialists; and his use of multiple narrators foresaw the upcoming modernists in 20th century America.

Though her translations are flawed and somewhat dated, Louise Varese still has not been topped as a the bringer-into-English of lil' Arther R.'s thorny prose-poems. Her versions remain closer in spirit to the originals than any of the later translations, most of which (if you'll pardon my French) suck, from the bland lazy word-for-word of the Penguin Classics edition, to the innumerable "interpreters" (Paul Schmidt and his shameless ilk) who make of his poems what they will (sometimes to further lengths than JR Ullman did with "The Day On Fire") and then call their work "translations." Anyway, if you know Rimbaud I'm probably preaching to the converted, and if you don't, and don't read French, the two New Directions/Varese translations are probably the best place to start, along with Pierre Petitfils' user-friendly biography.

This is one of the better translations of a Season in Hell. It's very faithful to the original French without compromising its poetry; many of the passages are nothing short of brilliant. Also, it's a bilingual edition for those who are either able or willing.

However, Varese struggles a bit under the poetic demands of the Drunken Boat. For example:

(Varese):
I can no longer, bathed in your languors, O waves,
Obliterate the cotton carriers' wake,
Nor cross the pride of pennants and of flags,
Nor swim past prison hulk's hateful eyes!

>> But trust me, for the superb quality of translation in A Season in Hell, this book's well worth the price.

This book is an essential portrayal of Rimbaud's most celebrated works. It includes a brief biography of Rimbaud. It is a great introduction to works by poets of that genre. People who enjoy this will also like Baudelaire and Verlaine. I recommend it highly.

A Season in Hell and The Drunken Boat by Arthur Rimbaud is one of the turning points of world literature and poetry. Henry Miller, the Surrealists and the Beat Generation poets as well as rock star Jim Morrison owe a great debt to young Prince Arthur. This passionate leap into the depths of insanity is enthralling. The meek would be well advised to steer clear. This is the granddaddy of modern poetry. Now, is truly the time of the assassins