100 Quotes by Charles Baudelaire

Written by Charles Baudelaire

Narrated by Brad Carty

This collection contains 100 of the most celebrated quotes by the French poet, translator and art and literary critic Charles Baudelaire (1821 - 1867), best known for his controversial collection of poems 'Les Fleurs du Mal' ('The Flowers of Evil') and the quote, "The devil's finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist." Charles-Pierre Baudelaire (1821 - 1867) was a French poet, translator and literary and art critic who is best known for his controversial collection of poems 'Les Fleurs du Mal' (1857; 'The Flowers of Evil'). His poems exhibit a mastery of rhythm and rhyme that were based on the Frenchman’s observations of real life. ‘La Chevelure’ (‘The Head of Hair’), ‘Le Voyage’ (‘The Trip’) and ‘Le Cygne’ (‘The Swan’) are widely acknowledged as poetic masterpieces.Themes of sex, death, lesbianism, metamorphosis, industrialisation, lost innocence and alcohol, caused controversy at the time but also garnered Baudelaire many fans, and his original style has influenced a generation of poets including Arthur Rimbaud and Stéphane Mallarmé. Baudelaire is also responsible for many famous quotes such as, ‘The devil's finest trick is to persuade you that he does not exist’, ‘Be always drunken. Nothing else matters…’ and ‘Strangeness is a necessary ingredient in beauty.’

• Language: English
• Publisher: SAGA Egmont
• Release date: Jun 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9782821116382

Charles Baudelaire

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) was a French poet. Born in Paris, Baudelaire lost his father at a young age. Raised by his mother, he was sent to boarding school in Lyon and completed his education at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, where he gained a reputation for frivolous spending and likely contracted several sexually transmitted diseases through his frequent contact with prostitutes. After journeying by sea to Calcutta, India at the behest of his stepfather, Baudelaire returned to Paris and began working on the lyric poems that would eventually become The Flowers of Evil (1857), his most famous work. Around this time, his family placed a hold on his inheritance, hoping to protect Baudelaire from his worst impulses. His mistress Jeanne Duval, a woman of mixed French and African ancestry, was rejected by the poet’s mother, likely leading to Baudelaire’s first known suicide attempt. During the Revolutions of 1848, Baudelaire worked as a journalist for a revolutionary newspaper, but soon abandoned his political interests to focus on his poetry and translations of the works of Thomas De Quincey and Edgar Allan Poe. As an arts critic, he promoted the works of Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix, composer Richard Wagner, poet Théophile Gautier, and painter Édouard Manet. Recognized for his pioneering philosophical and aesthetic views, Baudelaire has earned praise from such artists as Arthur Rimbaud, Stéphane Mallarmé, Marcel Proust, and T. S. Eliot. An embittered recorder of modern decay, Baudelaire was an essential force in revolutionizing poetry, shaping the outlook that would drive the next generation of artists away from Romanticism towards Symbolism, and beyond. Paris Spleen (1869), a posthumous collection of prose poems, is considered one of the nineteenth century’s greatest works of literature.