The Flowers of Evil

By Charles Baudelaire and Mint Editions

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. This edition of The Flowers of Evil is a classic of French literature reimagined for modern readers.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Mint Editions
• Release date: Sep 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781513297941

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.

Book preview

BENEDICTION

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.

"Ah, why did I not bear a serpent’s nest entire,

Instead of bringing forth this hideous Child of Doom!

Oh cursèd be that transient night of vain desire

When I conceived my expiation in my womb!"

"Yet since among all women thou hast chosen me

To be the degradation of my jaded mate,

And since I cannot like a love-leaf wantonly

Consign this stunted monster to the glowing grate,"

"I’ll cause thine overwhelming hatred to rebound

Upon the cursèd tool of thy most wicked spite.

Forsooth, the branches of this wretched tree I’ll wound

And rob its pestilential blossoms of their might!"

So thus, she giveth vent unto her foaming ire,

And knowing not the changeless statutes of all times,

Herself, amid the flames of hell, prepares the pyre;

The consecrated penance of maternal crimes.

Yet ’neath th’ invisible shelter of an Angel’s wing

This sunlight-loving infant disinherited,

Exhales from all he eats and drinks, and everything

The ever sweet ambrosia and the nectar red.

He trifles with the winds and with the clouds that glide,

About the way unto the Cross, he loves to sing,

The spirit on his pilgrimage; that faithful guide,

Oft weeps to see him joyful like a bird of Spring.

All those that he would cherish shrink from him with fear,

And some that waxen bold by his tranquility,

Endeavour hard some grievance from his heart to tear,

And make on him the trial of their ferocity.

Within the bread and wine outspread for his repast

To mingle dust and dirty spittle they essay,

And everything he touches, forth they slyly cast,

Or scourge themselves, if e’er their feet betrod his way.

His wife goes round proclaiming in the crowded quads—

"Since he can find my body beauteous to behold,

Why not perform the office of those ancient gods

And like unto them, redeck myself with shining gold?"

"I’ll bathe myself with incense, spikenard and myrrh,

With genuflexions, delicate viandes and wine,

To see, in jest, if from a heart, that loves me dear,

I cannot filch away the hommages divine."

"And when of these impious jokes at length I tire,

My frail but mighty hands, around his breast entwined,

With nails, like harpies’ nails, shall cunningly conspire

The hidden path unto his feeble heart to