The Flowers of Evil: (Les Fleurs du Mal) (Paperback)
Staff Reviews
Beaudelaire is one of those poets whose works I love and love to hate. Stylistically, his poetry straddles the transition of highly structured and metered poetry to the fluidity of modern poetry. Thematically, his works are flooded with mythology and spirituality. In his own time, he was considered either raunchy or brilliant. In my time I'd say: Edgar Allan Poe is to horror as Beaudelaire is to emo. And you can read it all in French for full affect.
- Stacey
— From The Flowers of Evil (Staff Pick)Description
On the 200th anniversary of Baudelaire’s birth comes this stunning landmark translation of the book that launched modern poetry.
Known to his contemporaries primarily as an art critic, but ambitious to secure a more lasting literary legacy, Charles Baudelaire, a Parisian bohemian, spent much of the 1840s composing gritty, often perverse, poems that expressed his disgust with the banality of modern city life.
First published in 1857, the book that collected these poems together, Les Fleurs du mal, was an instant sensation—earning Baudelaire plaudits and, simultaneously, disrepute. Only a year after Gustave Flaubert had endured his own public trial for published indecency (for Madame Bovary), a French court declared Les Fleurs du mal an offense against public morals and six poems within it were immediately suppressed (a ruling that would not be reversed until 1949, nearly a century after Baudelaire’s untimely death). Subsequent editions expanded on the original, including new poems that have since been recognized as Baudelaire’s masterpieces, producing a body of work that stands as the most consequential, controversial, and influential book of poetry from the nineteenth century.
Acclaimed translator and poet Aaron Poochigian tackles this revolutionary text with an ear attuned to Baudelaire’s lyrical innovations—rendering them in “an assertive blend of full and slant rhymes and fluent iambs” (A. E. Stallings)—and an intuitive feel for the work’s dark and brooding mood. Poochigian’s version captures the incantatory, almost magical, effect of the original—reanimating for today’s reader Baudelaire’s “unfailing vision” that “trumpeted the space and light of the future” (Patti Smith).
An introduction by Dana Gioia offers a probing reassessment of the supreme artistry of Baudelaire’s masterpiece, and an afterword by Daniel Handler explores its continued relevance and appeal. Featuring the poems in English and French, this deluxe dual-language edition allows readers to commune both with the original poems and with these electric, revelatory translations.
About the Author
Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) was a French poet, critic, essayist, and translator. He is buried in the Cimetiere du Montparnasse in Paris.
Aaron Poochigian has published four books of poetry and several translations, including Aristophanes: Four Plays (2021). He lives in New York City.
Daniel Handler is best known for his books as Lemony Snicket, notably the thirteen-volume A Series of Unfortunate Events and the four-book sequence All the Wrong Questions. Under his given name, he is the author of seven novels, and has worked extensively in music, theater, film, and television. He lives in San Francisco, California.