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Charles Baudelaire, great French poet and one of the most important innovators in French literature, was an unhappy and melancholy dandy, with erratic interests. He ran a quite dissolute and disorderly life.
When he was only 20 his stepfather sent him on a voyage to India thinking to stop his dissolute habits, which was a totally bizarre decision, since a young and emotional dandy in India would have probably found even more reasons to experiment dissolute emotions in exotics environments.
That shows how often adults, when they want to be strict to correct youngsters’ faults get the opposite results.
The following year, in France again, young Baudelaire kept on spending his nights in taverns and started writing some of the poems of his “ Les Fleurs du Mal”, a sublime collection of poems, inspired by decadence and
eroticism.
Obviously he was prosecuted and accused of insult to public decency. As a consequence of this prosecution,
Baudelaire was fined 300 francs. Six poems from the work were suppressed and the ban on their publication was not lifted in France until 1949.
“Les Fleurs du Mal” ( The Flowers of Evil) was published in 1857 and immediately provoked problems to Baudelaire.
In 1856 Gustave Flaubert published his extraordinary masterpiece the novel “ Madame Bovary” and it was attacked for obscenity.
A trial was held in January 1857 and Flaubert was acquitted.
Those were the times…
When he was only 20 his stepfather sent him on a voyage to India thinking to stop his dissolute habits, which was a totally bizarre decision, since a young and emotional dandy in India would have probably found even more reasons to experiment dissolute emotions in exotics environments.
That shows how often adults, when they want to be strict to correct youngsters’ faults get the opposite results.
The following year, in France again, young Baudelaire kept on spending his nights in taverns and started writing some of the poems of his “ Les Fleurs du Mal”, a sublime collection of poems, inspired by decadence and
eroticism.
Obviously he was prosecuted and accused of insult to public decency. As a consequence of this prosecution,
Baudelaire was fined 300 francs. Six poems from the work were suppressed and the ban on their publication was not lifted in France until 1949.
“Les Fleurs du Mal” ( The Flowers of Evil) was published in 1857 and immediately provoked problems to Baudelaire.
In 1856 Gustave Flaubert published his extraordinary masterpiece the novel “ Madame Bovary” and it was attacked for obscenity.
A trial was held in January 1857 and Flaubert was acquitted.
Those were the times…
Charles Baudelaire loved only two women in his life, even though he had many relationships and affairs: his mother and Jeanne Duval, a mysterious Haitian Creole actress, who was his mistress for nearly 20 years.
Edouard Manet the famous French impressionist painter, who was a friend of Baudelaire, painted a portrait of his creole lover Jeanne.
Baudelaire died at the age of 46 after a massive stroke and consequent paralysis and aphasia. In spite of his incapacity of expressing his will, he received the last rites of Catholic Church.
After his death his beloved mother recalled: "Oh, what grief! If Charles had let himself be guided by his stepfather, his career would have been very different... He would not have left a name in literature, it is true, but we should have been happier, all three of us".
Baudelaire was one of the best French translators of Edgar Allan Poe, whom he admired immensely.
They had many things in common in their tormented personalities.
Edouard Manet the famous French impressionist painter, who was a friend of Baudelaire, painted a portrait of his creole lover Jeanne.
Baudelaire died at the age of 46 after a massive stroke and consequent paralysis and aphasia. In spite of his incapacity of expressing his will, he received the last rites of Catholic Church.
After his death his beloved mother recalled: "Oh, what grief! If Charles had let himself be guided by his stepfather, his career would have been very different... He would not have left a name in literature, it is true, but we should have been happier, all three of us".
Baudelaire was one of the best French translators of Edgar Allan Poe, whom he admired immensely.
They had many things in common in their tormented personalities.
Here is the end of the preface of “Les Fleurs du mal”
| C'est l'Ennui! -l'œil chargé d'un pleur involontaire, Il rêve d'échafauds en fumant son houka. Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat, - Hypocrite lecteur, - mon semblable, - mon frère! | It's Ennui!— his eye brimming with spontaneous tear He dreams of the gallows in the haze of his hookah. You know him, reader, this delicate monster, Hypocritical reader, my likeness, my brother! |
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