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Rating: 
Summary: A "success de scandale"...
Review: "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...
Rating:
Summary: A "success de scandale"...
Review: "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...
Rating:
Summary: Great Choice of French Poetry
Review: Charles Baudelaire is a one of the finest French poets. Critics refer to his works as "les poemes obscures. If you like Edgar Alan Poe's style, you'll love Baudelaire. I recommend reading 2 poems in particular " La Beaute", and "L'ennemi".
If you are a bilingual reader, I'd recommend buying "Contes Francais". This is, again, a dual-language book with chosen stories from Voltaire, Balzac, Gide, et Camus...
Rating:
Summary: The Most Intriguing of Poets
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: compare original and translation
Review: 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?
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