The flowers of evil

“Les fleurs du mal” is a nearly complete collection of Charles Baudelaire’s poetry, upon its first publication in 1857 this volume of poetry characterized by its breaking of tradition when it came to not only form but also theme was labeled as a controversial and immoral piece of writing ending up with 6 censored poems.

Baudelaire’s poetry is graphic and heavily influenced by Edgar Allan Poe’s writing to the point where some of the first translations we have available of Poe’s stories were written by Baudelaire who was responsible for the popularization of this American author in Europe.

To truly understand Baudelaire’s writing we must grasp some of the key influences and traits of his poetry, he was what we might consider an anti/post-romantic to the point where he did not see nature itself as a beautiful thing but rather a conjunction of disgusting materials out of which we could create charming things through human activity and effort. To Baudelaire taking what nature gives us freely in its raw form without making it undergo a process of transfiguration would be like accepting the ugliness of the world without attempting to change it.

We are capable of finding traits of Aestheticism (an artistic doctrine that states that art need only be beautiful) and of Decadence (a falling off either in artistic or moral standards) in most of his poems leading to the presence of a productive decay, of the creation of something dazzling out of the horrors of life as a member of society, of alteration of the natural state of things through alcohol/drugs/cosmetics/ritual in which we de-familiarize ourselves with the world that surrounds us, turning reality into something unrecognizable.

Some of the key themes of Baudelaire’s poetry that I found most interesting are those of “spleen” and “ideal”, “ideal” is an escape from reality and drift into nostalgia (sort of like Pessoa’s ‘Mundo Onírico’, but without the realization of false perfection) that can be attained through the engagement with the female figure that allows the conjuration of a paradise. But besides being a means to encounter the “ideal”, the female body is also pictured as a temptation to sin, demonstrating in this manner the paradoxical nature of Baudelaire‘s perception of women as not only an angel intermediary to happiness but also as a temptress/siren that causes men to descend into Satan. The existence of the “ideal” is also a reminder of the human need to escape from the torturous reality that is plagued by the “spleen”, a symbol of decay, physical/spiritual and moral degradation, fear, destruction, sickness, and agony.

To finalize this attempt at a review I must address the problematic nature of Baudelaire’s portrayal of women, as modern readers, we must possess the critical thinking skills to realize that a writer/artist is a human being and like any other human being, they are flawed and inserted into a social, historical and political scenario that will influence their interpretation of the world and consequently their art. There is no way of sugar-coating Baudelaire’s blatant misogyny but instead of condemning this dead man and completely ignoring his outstanding creations, we should instead attempt to create something beautiful out of a rather non-attractive reality.
(I am so sorry for any grammar/vocab mistakes, English is not my first language and since I am a stem student my writing skills equal that of a 7-year-old, two Capri-suns deep into ecstasy)

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some of my favorite poems from this book (mind you i read the 3rd edition, 1868, with the 6 poems that were censored by the 2nd empire so i am not certain if these poems are present in every single compilation of baudelaire’s poetry) :
-“La Destruction”
- “Une martyre”
-“Allégorie”
-“L’amour et lê crâne”
-“Alchimie de la douleur”
-“Le Chat”
-“Le Vin de l’assassin”
-“Une charogne”