Book Description

The Flowers of Evil Charles Baudelaire Dual Language, French-English Edition Les Fleurs du mal ; English: The Flowers of Evil) is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire. First published in 1857 (see 1857 in poetry), it was important in the symbolist and modernist movements. The poems deal with themes relating to decadence and eroticism. The initial publication of the book was arranged in six thematically segregated sections: Spleen et Idéal (Spleen and Ideal) Tableaux parisiens (Parisian Scenes) Le Vin (Wine) Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) Révolte (Revolt) La Mort (Death) Baudelaire dedicated the book to the poet Théophile Gautier, describing him as a parfait magicien des lettres françaises ("a perfect magician of French letters"). The foreword to the volume, Au Lecteur ("To the Reader"), identifying Satan with the pseudonymous alchemist Hermes Trismegistus and calling boredom the worst of miseries, sets the general tone of what is to follow: Si le viol, le poison, le poignard, l'incendie, N'ont pas encore brodé de leurs plaisants dessins Le canevas banal de nos piteux destins, C'est que notre âme, hélas ! n'est pas assez hardie. If rape, poison, dagger and fire, Have still not embroidered their pleasant designs On the banal canvas of our pitiable destinies, It's because our soul, alas, is not bold enough! The preface concludes with the following malediction: C'est l'Ennui!--l'oeil chargé d'un pleur involontaire, Il rêve d'échafauds en fumant son houka. Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat, Hypocrite lecteur,--mon semblable,--mon frère! It's Boredom!--eye brimming with an involuntary tear He dreams of gallows while smoking his hookah. You know him, reader, this delicate monster, Hypocritical reader, my likeness, my brother! Baudelaire's section Tableaux Parisiens, added in the second edition (1861), is considered one of the most formidable criticisms of 19th-century French modernity. This section contains 18 poems, most of which were written during Haussmann's renovation of Paris. Together, the poems in Tableaux Parisiens act as 24-hour cycle of Paris, starting with the second poem Le Soleil (The Sun) and ending with the second to last poem Le Crépuscule du Matin (Morning Twilight). The poems featured in this cycle of Paris all deal with the feelings of anonymity and estrangement from a newly modernized city. Baudelaire is critical of the clean and geometrically laid out streets of Paris which alienate the unsung anti-heroes of Paris who serve as inspiration for the poet: the beggars, the blind, the industrial worker, the gambler, the prostitute, the old and the victim of imperialism. These characters whom Baudelaire once praised as the backbone of Paris are now eulogized in his nostalgic poems. For Baudelaire, the city has been transformed into an anthill of identical bourgeois that reflect the new identical structures that litter a Paris he once called home but can now no longer recognize.