Paris Spleen: little poems in prose
By Charles Baudelaire and Keith Waldrop
4.5/5
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About this ebook
Between 1855 and his death in 1867, Charles Baudelaire inaugurated a new—and in his own words "dangerous"—hybrid form in a series of prose poems known as Paris Spleen. Important and provocative, these fifty poems take the reader on a tour of 1850s Paris, through gleaming cafes and filthy side streets, revealing a metropolis on the eve of great change. In its deliberate fragmentation and merging of the lyrical with the sardonic, Le Spleen de Paris may be regarded as one of the earliest and most successful examples of a specifically urban writing, the textual equivalent of the city scenes of the Impressionists. In this compelling new translation, Keith Waldrop delivers the companion to his innovative translation of The Flowers of Evil. Here, Waldrop's perfectly modulated mix releases the music, intensity, and dissonance in Baudelaire's prose. The result is a powerful new re-imagining that is closer to Baudelaire's own poetry than any previous English translation.
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.
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Reviews for Paris Spleen
10 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Korte schetsen, over eenzaamheid, oudworden. Soms sterk gelijkend op Poemeesterlijk observatievermogen, voorafspiegeling van de Maupassant, soms fijn, soms grof. Techniek van de onverwachte wending die het voorafgaande in een heel ander perspectief plaatst. Op het geniale af
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Korte schetsen, over eenzaamheid, oudworden. Soms sterk gelijkend op Poemeesterlijk observatievermogen, voorafspiegeling van de Maupassant, soms fijn, soms grof. Techniek van de onverwachte wending die het voorafgaande in een heel ander perspectief plaatst. Op het geniale af
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I never really understood the appeal of Les Fleurs du Mal, but so many people love it that I started to feel bad. What was I missing? Along comes this book, Paris Spleen, which is full of prose poems made of equal parts humor, cynicism, and insight (and often all three within a paragraph). I like these poems because reading it, I feel like I have a sense of who Baudelaire might have been as a person...Plus, his humor is so odd: Soup and Clouds My adorable little minx was serving me supper; through the dining room's open window I was contemplating the shifting architectures God creates from vapour, those marvellous constructions of the evanescent. As I watched, I thought: "Those apparitions are nearly as beautiful as my sweet lady's eyes, the mad little green-eyed monster." Suddenly a violent fist landed in my back and I heard a charming, raw voice hysterical and brandy-damaged, the voice of my little darling, saying: "Get on with your bloody soup, cloud merchant."
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is a good book for anyone new to Baudelaire or prose poems. Several great poems are included.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One of the the earliest examples of prose poetry, Baudelaire's Paris Spleen is a tribute to the city of Paris and its pleasures: poetry, wine, women and the drunkenness brought about by these pursuits. Let's not forget Baudelaire's old pal Satan, he rears his head here more than once. Also present here is Baudelaire's witty political commentaries, presented in perhaps a more discernible form here than in The Flowers of Evil.Paris Spleen is not as consistent in regards to 'quality' (Rather a bad choice of words here, I do not want to mislead any ignorant reader into thinking Baudelaire is any less than great) or as urgent in tone as its more wide read predecessor. Overall though, this an indispensable for all students of poetry as well as those "moon-mad men." We couldn't forget them, now could we?
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5heavy and elastic honeybrown hair. you can almost hear it?!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inspired by Bertrand's Gaspard de la Nuit Baudelaire borrowed the idea of turning french poetry on its head by releasing this collection of prose poems. The real virtues of the poetry, the play with language, internal rhyme, and grammar, don't come through very strongly in translation. Luckily for Baudelaire's english speaking audience, the subjects of his poems were so rich and his imagery was so vivid that even after all of those elements are lost, his poetry still stands up under scrutiny. The only downside of this collection is that it's not a dual language version-- even if you don't speak a foreign language you can still get a sense for its rythym by comparing the original and the translation side by side. The prose poems in this collection (and the ones in Les Fleurs du Mal) focus on the internal life of the city. Ina time when Paris was being systematically destroyed and rebuilt, Baudelaire looks past the veneer of the city to the heart of its citizens. While British poets from the same time lose themselves in the architecture of the city and in the city's natural elements, Baudelaire and his contemporaries focused specifically on the people that make up the city. Paris Spleen gives you an outsider's look into Parisian life. As the narrator of these pieces moves through the city, he shares his assumptions about life as seen through windows, as passed on corners, as watched but not necessarily participated in. When the narrator actually does take part in the world around him, he does so with gestures so grand that they exist only for the sake of metaphor. In one instance, the narrator berates a glass dealer for harassing the poor and tosses a flower pot at him. In another, men are described as carrying chimeras on their backs as they go through their daily routines.Although at times the narrative leans towards the surreal, the images are accessable and each poem flows quickly. If you can't read the poems in their original language, this is a great translation to pick up.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Who among us has not dreamt, in moments of ambition, of the miracle of a poetic prose, musical without rhythm and rhyme, supple and staccato enough to adapt to the lyrical stirrings of the soul, the undulations of dreams, and sudden leaps of consciousness.
Contrary to popular belief, I had never read Baudelaire until now. I've trusted Walter Benjamin and lately Calasso to provide me with a well informed ethos about this central figure. There are many concerns that this is the literature of the young, to which I shout, absurd. This is the lettres of the Absolute, the eternally curious.
Below the bile, there is a hum of sensitivity. Behind the debris are the tears of the sensitive. Is it forgiving, likely not? There is a buzzing pulse at play, a hum and a forgiving glance.