Known to his contemporaries primarily as an art critic, but
ambitious to secure a more lasting literary legacy, Parisian
bohemian Charles Baudelaire, 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 recognised 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.
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