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You Know How a Cat will bring a mouse it has caught and lay it at your feet so each morning I bring you a poem that I've written when I woke up in the night as my tribute to your beauty & a promise of my love. -James Laughlin Across the ages, cats have provided their adopted humans with companionship, affection, mystery, and innumerable metaphors. Cats raise a mirror up to their beholders; cats endlessly captivate and hypnotise, frustrate and delight. To poets, in particular, these enigmatic creatures are the most delightful and beguiling of muses, as they purr, prowl, hunt, play, meow, and nap, often oblivious to their so-called masters. Cat Poems offers a litter of odes to our beloved felines by some of the greatest poets of all time.
The Flowers of Evil (1857) is a collection of poems by Charles Baudelaire. Translated into English by Cyril Scott in 1909, Baudelaire's poems remain lively and idiosyncratic nearly two centuries after they came into existence. Comprised mostly of sonnets and short lyrics, The Flowers of Evil captures Baudelaire's sense of the changing role of the poet in modern life. Rather than focus on beauty and other ideals, Baudelaire explores the totality of human experience-the good, bad, and ugly of life on earth. "When by the changeless Power of a Supreme Decree / The poet issues forth upon this sorry sphere, / His mother, horrified, and full of blasphemy, / Uplifts her voice to God, who takes compassion on her." In his opening benediction, Baudelaire reverses the typical trope of invoking the muses or celebrating poetry as a divine gift. Instead, he depicts the poet as a being cursed, a "hideous Child of Doom." Childhood for Baudelaire is a subject of particular interest, a time described, in his poem "The Enemy," as "a ravaging storm, / Enlivened at times by a brilliant sun..." The youthful experience of melancholy clearly informs the poet's outlook as an adult: "Time devours our lives, / And the enemy black, which consumeth our hearts / On the blood of our bodies, increases and thrives!" While much of Baudelaire's work deals with darkness and despair, his poems can rise to the heights of celebration and ecstasy, his voice soft and sweet as he invites his sister on a journey to an imagined land of "order and loveliness, / Luxury, calm and voluptuousness." Ultimately, Baudelaire's vision-however irreverent-is guided by truth and morality, which drive him on a torturous path from good to evil, beauty to death, and back. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of The Flowers of Evil is a classic of French literature reimagined for modern readers.
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.
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.
"Baudelaire is indeed the greatest exemplar in modern poetry in any language," said T. S. Eliot. We experience Baudelaire in myriad ways through his multifaceted writing. His sensuous poems--dreams of escape to an impossible, preferably tropical, elsewhere--draw us in with their descriptive and perceptual richness. There is also the bitter, compassionate, and desolate Baudelaire. Ultimately, Baudelaire's true genius might reside in his expressive force and in the tension between his passions and intellect. The latter is most evident in his control of rhetoric and poetic form, and--given the poems' density of language, thought, and feeling--his astonishing clarity. This new English rendition of Baudelaire by award-winning translator Beverley Bie Brahic includes poems from his celebrated volumes: Les Fleurs du mal, Les Epaves, Le Spleen de Paris, and Paradis artificiels. It also includes several of his prose poems, as well as an excerpt from his famous essay on wine and hashish. The poems in verse have Baudelaire's French originals on facing pages; the prose poems, unaccompanied by their originals, are printed near the poems in verse with which they resonate. Complete with the translator's illuminating introduction and notes, this beautifully crafted volume is an important addition to Baudelaire's work in English translation.
The celebrated, National Book Award winning, translation of Baudelaire's masterpiece. "It is the English edition to acquire."-Washington Post Pulitzer Prize winning poet and translator, Richard Howard, gives readers the true voice of Baudelaire in this masterful translation. Charles Baudelaire's 1857 masterwork was scandalous in its day for its portrayals of sex, same-sex love, death, the corrupting and oppressive power of the modern city and lost innocence, Les Fleurs Du Mal (The Flowers of Evil) remains powerful and relevant for our time. In "Spleen et ideal," Baudelaire dramatizes the erotic cycle of ecstacy and anguish-of sexual and romantic love. "Tableaux Parisiens" condemns the crushing effects of urban planning on a city's soul and praises the city's anti-heroes including the deranged and derelict. "Le Vin" centers on the search for oblivion in drink and drugs. The many kinds of love that lie outside traditional morality is the focus of "Fleurs du Mal" while rebellion is at the heart of "Revolte." "Howard's achievement is such that we can be confident that his Flowers of Evil will long stand as definitive, a superb guide to France's greatest poet."-The Nation
Selected poems from the Les Fleurs du Mall are translated with parallel French texts. They can be read by those with no knowledge of French, as well as those who are practised in the French language.
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.
The 'Tableaux Parisiens' (Paris Scenes) section of Les Fleurs du Mal contains eighteen poems which record a twenty-four-hour tour of the city: a type of Joycean journey from the point of view of a dandy Odysseus. Many of the poems in the sequence possess the sharpness and intensity of a dream, a dedoublement, enabling us to contemplate life in a manner that merges the fantastic and the sordidly realistic. These new translations are accompanied by artist Sally Castle's responses prompted by the work of Constantin Guys, Baudelaire's favourite 'painter of modern life'. 'These unblinking translations by Ian Brinton offer us a revival of Baudelaire's offense against public morals. Hand-in-hand with the poet's unquiet ghost, Brinton reminds us of the transparency of our contemporary mores so that we see through to Baudelaire's genius, to his insistent sense of mortality in its Romantic eroticism and corruption. To understand the poet "tranced in envy" at the antics of these corpse-like erotics is to glimpse a form of compassion, of pity for the human condition. This strange and haunting quality is there at every turn of Brinton's Baudelaire.' - KELVIN CORCORAN
Set in a modern, urban Paris, the prose pieces in this volume constitute a further exploration of the terrain Baudelaire had covered in his verse masterpiece, The Flowers of Evil the city and its squalor and inequalities, the pressures of time and mortality, and the liberation provided by the sensual delights of intoxication, art, and women. Published posthumously in 1869, Paris Spleen was a landmark publication in the development of the genre of prose poetry a format which Baudelaire saw as particularly suited for expressing the feelings of uncertainty, flux, and freedom of his age and one of the founding texts of literary modernism."
In his introduction to Charles Baudelaire's Salon of 1846, the renowned art historian Michael Fried presents a new take on the French poet and critic's ideas on art, criticism, romanticism, and the paintings of Delacroix. Charles Baudelaire, considered a father of modern poetry, wrote some of the most daring and influential prose of the nineteenth century. Prior to publishing international bestseller Les Fleurs du mal (1857), he was already notable as a forthright and witty critic of art and literature. Captivated by the Salons in Paris, Baudelaire took to writing to express his theories on modern art and art philosophy. br> The Salon of 1846 expands upon the tenets of Romanticism as Baudelaire methodically takes his reader through paintings by Delecroix and Ingres, illuminating his belief that the pursuit of the ideal must be paramount in artistic expression. Here we also see Baudelaire caught in a fundamental struggle with the urban commodity of capitalism developing in Paris at that time. Baudelaire's text proves to be a useful lens for understanding art criticism in mid-nineteenth-century France, as well as the changing opinions regarding the essential nature of Romanticism and the artist as creative genius. Acclaimed art historian and art critic Michael Fried's introduction offers a new reading of Baudelaire's seminal text and highlights the importance of his writing and its relevance to today's audience.
The bilingual, illustrated, and National Book Award-winning edition of Charles Baudelaire’s masterpiece. The complete French text is accompanied with an English translation by Richard Howard. Charles Baudelaire’s 1857 masterwork was scandalous in its day for its portrayals of sex, same-sex love, death, the corrupting and oppressive power of the modern city and lost innocence, Les Fleurs Du Mal (The Flowers of Evil) remains powerful and relevant for our time. In “Spleen et idéal,” Baudelaire dramatizes the erotic cycle of ecstacy and anguish—of sexual and romantic love. “Tableaux Parisiens” condemns the crushing effects of urban planning on a city’s soul and praises the city’s anti-heroes including the deranged and derelict. “Le Vin” centers on the search for oblivion in drink and drugs. The many kinds of love that lie outside traditional morality is the focus of “Fleurs du Mal” while rebellion is at the heart of “Révolte.” The voice of Baudelaire lives in this award-winning edition that includes monotypes by artist, Michael Mazur. “Howard’s achievement is such that we can be confident that this Fleurs du Mal will long stand as definitive, a superb guide to France’s greatest poet.”—The Nation
Banned and slighted in his lifetime, the book that contains all of Baudelaire's verses has opened up vistas to the imagination and quickened sensibilities of poets everywhere. Yet it is questionable whether a single translator can give adequate voice to Baudelaire's full poetic range. In compiling their classic, bilingual edition of The Flowers of Evil, the late Marthiel and Jackson Mathews chose from the work of forty-one translators to create a collection that is "a commentary on the present state of the art of translation." The Mathews' volume is a poets' homage to Baudelaire as well. Among the contributors are: Robert Fitzgerald, Anthony Hecht, Aldous Huxley, Stanley Kunitz, Robert Lowell, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Karl Shapiro, Allen Tate, Richard Wilbur, Yvon Winters.
Paris Spleen , a diverse collection of fifty prose poems, is provided here in a clear, engaging, and accurate translation that conveys the lyricism and nuance of the original French text. Also included is a translation of Baudelaire's early novella, La Fanfarlo , which, alongside Paris Spleen, sheds light on the development of Baudelaire's work over time. Raymond N. MacKenzie's introductory essay discusses Baudelaire's life and the literary climate in which he lived and worked. Focusing on the theory of the prose poem, MacKenzie suggests that Baudelaire turned to this form for both aesthetic and ethical reasons, and because the form allowed him to explore more fully the complexities of the modern, urban, human condition. By turns comic, somber, satiric, and self-questioning, Paris Spleen is one of the nineteenth century's richest masterpieces.
The Flowers of Evil, which T. S. Eliot called the greatest example of modern poetry in any language, shocked the literary world of nineteenth century France with its outspoken portrayal of lesbian love, its linking sexuality and death, its unremitting irony, and its unflinching celebration of the seamy side of urban life. The volume was seized by the police, and Baudelaire and his published were put on trial for offence to public decency. Six offending poems were banned, in a conviction that was not overturned until 1949. This bold new translation, which restores the banned poems to their original places and reveals the full richness and variety of the collection, makes available to English speakers a powerful and original version of the world. Jonathan Culler's Introduction outlines this vision, stressing that Baudelaire is more than just the poet of the modern city. Originally to be called `The Lesbians', The Flowers of Evil contains the most extraordinary body of love poetry. The poems also pose the question of the role of evil in our lives, of whether there are not external forces working to frustrate human plans and to enlist men and women on appalling or stultifying scenarios not of their own making. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
Set in a modern, urban Paris, the prose pieces in this volume constitute a further exploration of the terrain Baudelaire had covered in his verse masterpiece, The Flowers of Evil: the city with all its squalor and inequalities, the pressures of time and mortality, and the liberation provided by the sensual delights of intoxication, art and women. Published posthumously in 1869, Paris Spleen was a landmark publication in the development of the genre of prose poetry - a form which Baudelaire saw as particularly suited for expressing the feelings of uncertainty, flux and freedom of his age - and one of the founding texts of literary Modernism.
"Among the earliest artistic descriptions of the hallucinogenic experience in European literature, the four pieces in this volume document Gautier's and Baudelaire's own involvement in the Club of Assassins, who met under the auspices of Dr Moreau to investigate the mind-enhancing effects of hashish, wine and opium. As well as providing an absorbing account of nineteenth-century drug use, Hashish, Wine, Opium captures the spirit of French Romanticism in its struggle to free the mind from the shackles of the humdrum and the conventional, and serves as a fascinating prologue to the psychedelic literature of the following century."
Rimbaud called him 'le premier voyant, roi des poetes, un vrai dieu', and the history of modern poetry, which begins with him, has borne out that opinion. This is a comprehensive new translation of all Baudelaire's poetry, excluding only the juvenilia, occasional verse and work of doubtful attribution. It includes all the poems published in the first (1857) and second (1861) editions of the book, as well as those added to the third (1868), published after the poet's death. Baudelaire contemplated a volume of poems that would 'launch him into the future like a cannonball', and here it is in vivid and formally authoritative translation.
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