Read complete books and articles on: Charles Baudelaire

Baudelaire, Charles - shärl bōdlârˈ, 1821–67, French poet and critic. His poetry, classical in form, introduced symbolism (see symbolists) by establishing symbolic correspondences among sensory images (e.g., colors, sounds, scents). The only volume of his poems published in his lifetime, Les Fleurs du mal (1857, enlarged 1861, 1868; several Eng. tr., The Flowers of Evil), was publicly condemned as obscene, and six of the poems were suppressed. Later recognized as a masterpiece, the volume is especially remarkable for the brilliant phrasing, rhythm, and expressiveness of its lyrics. Baudelaire's erratic personality was marked by moodiness, rebelliousness, and an intense religious mysticism. His life was burdened with debts, misunderstanding, illness, and excesses, and his work unremittingly reflects inner despair. The main theme is the inseparable nature of beauty and corruption. A collection of poetic prose pieces was published posthumously as Petits poèmes en prose (1869). As poet and critic Baudelaire earned distinction in literary circles. Believing criticism to be a function of the poet, he wrote perceptive appraisals of his contemporaries. His criticism was collected posthumously in Curiosités esthétiques (1868) and L'Art romantique (1869). He felt a great affinity to Poe, whose works he translated and brought to the attention of the French public. One of the great figures of French literature, Baudelaire has also been a major influence in other Western poetry.

See his letters (tr. by S. Morini and F. Tuten, 1970), his intimate journal (tr. by C. Isherwood, 1947), and selected letters (tr. and ed. by L. B. and F. E. Hyslop, 1957); biography by E. Starkie (rev. ed. 1958), studies by J.-P. Sartre (1950, repr. 1972) and M. A. Ruff (1965).

Show Excerpt Only

15 of the Best Books and Articles on: Charles Baudelaire

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

The Flowers of Evil » Read Now
by Charles Baudelaire, James McGowan. 405 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

The Flowers of Evil, which T. S. Eliot called the greatest example of modern poetry in any language, shocked the literary world of nineteenth-century France with its outspoken portrayal of lesbian love, its linking of sexuality and death, its unremitting irony, and its unflinching celebration of the...
Read More

The Flowers of Evil, which T. S. Eliot called the greatest example of modern poetry in any language, shocked the literary world of nineteenth-century France with its outspoken portrayal of lesbian love, its linking of sexuality and death, its unremitting irony, and its unflinching celebration of the seamy side of urban life. The volume was seized by the police, and Baudelaire and his publisher were tried for offence to public decency. Six poems were banned, in a conviction that was not overturned until 1949. This bold new translation, which restores the banned poems to their original places and reveals the full richness and variety of the collection, makes available to English speakers a powerful and original vision of the world.
Show less
2.

The Mirror of Art, Critical Studies » Read Now
by Charles Baudelaire, Jonathan Mayne. 364 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library
3.

The Centennial Celebration of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal (literary criticism) » Read Now
by University of Texas Press. 64 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library
4.

Baudelaire's Tragic Hero: A Study of the Architecture of Les Fleurs du Mal » Read Now
by D. J. Mossop. 254 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library
5.

Baudelaire's Prose Poems: The Practice and Politics of Irony » Read Now
by Sonya Stephens. 190 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

The aim of this book is to offer a new reading of Baudelaire's Petits Poèmes en prose which demonstrates the significance of ironic otherness for the theory and functioning of the work and for the genre of the prose poem itself. The book considers Baudelaire's choice of this genre and the way in...
Read More

The aim of this book is to offer a new reading of Baudelaire's Petits Poèmes en prose which demonstrates the significance of ironic otherness for the theory and functioning of the work and for the genre of the prose poem itself. The book considers Baudelaire's choice of this genre and the way in which he seeks to define it, both paratextually and textually. It examines the ways in which the prose poem depends on dualities and déboublements as forms of lyrical and narrative difference which, in their turn, reveal ideological otherness and declare the oppositionality of the prose poem. Finally, the book demonstrates a relationship between these forms of otherness and Baudelaire's theory of the popular comic arts and, in doing so, proposes that the prose poems should be read as literary caricature.
Show less
6.

Baudelaire and the Art of Memory » Read Now
by J. A. Hiddleston. 308 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

This study is an examination of Baudelaire's art criticism and its relationship with his creative writing. It is the first book in English to treat in one volume the diverse aspects of the subject: the principal aesthetic ideas, the importance of Delacroix, Boudin, Meryon, Guys, and Manet, the...
Read More

This study is an examination of Baudelaire's art criticism and its relationship with his creative writing. It is the first book in English to treat in one volume the diverse aspects of the subject: the principal aesthetic ideas, the importance of Delacroix, Boudin, Meryon, Guys, and Manet, the essays on laughter and caricature, and the language and rhetoric of the Salons and other critical writings. The title reflects Baudelaire's conviction, which emphasizes in relation to Delacroix, Daumier, Guys, and Wagner, that all art, whether it is painting, poetry or music, springs from the memory of the artist and speaks to the memory of the consumer of that art. This idea, exemplified in his own creative writing, extends to criticism itself, which is seen primarily as a phenomenon of recognition, and it is that sense of recognition that the author has sought to emphasize throughout.
Show less
7.

Baudelaire and the Aesthetics of Bad Faith » Read Now
by Susan Blood. 212 pgs.

Collections: Philosophy, Literature, Entire Library

This study of Baudelaire's canonisation in the critical debates of the 20th century focuses particularly on his role in the development of a modernist consciousness. Baudelaire's poetry is examined in detail.
8.

Six French Poets of the Nineteenth Century: Lamartine, Hugo, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarme » Read Now
by A. M. Blackmore, E. H. Blackmore. 336 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

'Poetry will no longer keep in time with action; it will be ahead of it.' Arthur Rimbaud The active and colourful lives of the poets of nineteenth-century France are reflected in the diversity and vibrancy of their works. At once sacred and profane, passionate and satirical, these remarkable and...
Read More

'Poetry will no longer keep in time with action; it will be ahead of it.' Arthur Rimbaud The active and colourful lives of the poets of nineteenth-century France are reflected in the diversity and vibrancy of their works. At once sacred and profane, passionate and satirical, these remarkable and innovative poems explore the complexities of human emotion and ponder the great questions of religion and art. They form as rich a body of work as any one age and language has ever produced. This unique anthology includes generous selections from the six nineteenth-century French poets most often read in the English-speaking world today: Lamartine, Hugo, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, and Mallarmé. Modern translations are printed opposite the original French verse, and the edition contains over a thousand lines of poetry never previously translated into English.
Show less
9.

Gender on the Divide: The Dandy in Modernist Literature (Chap. 4 "Mundus Muliebris: Baudelaire's Dandy") » Read Now
by Jessica R. Feldman. 293 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library
10.

A Cadaver in Clothes: Autobiography and the Dandy in Baudelaire, in The Romanic Review » Read Now
by E. S. Burt. 21 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library
11.

Rousseau's Legacy: Emergence and Eclipse of the Writer in France (Chap. 3 "Charles Baudelaire: Portrait of the Poet as Anti-Writer") » Read Now
by Dennis Porter. 312 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Rousseau's Legacy focuses on the new and influential paradigm of the writer that emerged in the decades immediately preceding the French Revolution. Ushered in by Rousseau's combining revolutionary sociopolitical critique with a new art of autobiography, the writer would henceforth differ greatly...
Read More

Rousseau's Legacy focuses on the new and influential paradigm of the writer that emerged in the decades immediately preceding the French Revolution. Ushered in by Rousseau's combining revolutionary sociopolitical critique with a new art of autobiography, the writer would henceforth differ greatly from the traditional "man of letters." Rousseau inaugurated the idea of a heroic and committed writerly life in which the opposition between public and private selves is collapsed. This was done in the cause of creating a future political community founded on transparency. Porter, with both a wide-ranging knowledge of contemporary theory and an informed interest in cultural/historical context, gives close readings of relevant works by a number of major French writers, including Stendhal, Baudelaire, Sartre, Barthes, Duras, Althusser, and Foucault. Thus, he explores the persistent importance of the Rousseauist paradigm for French literary culture. The book goes beyond a critique or theory that interprets literary or philosophical works for their own sake, to reveal representations and self-representations of the idea of the writer in paintings, engravings, and photographs, as well as in literary texts. In concluding, Porter argues that with the collapse of faith in social and individual regeneration through revolution, the archetype of such a writer is also waning.
Show less
12.

The Orient of Style: Modernist Allegories of Conversion (Discussion of Charles Baudelaire begins on p. 143) » Read Now
by Beryl Schlossman. 300 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library
13.

Mud into Gold: Baudelaire and the Alchemy of Public Hygiene, in The Romanic Review » Read Now
by Emily Jane Cohen. 16 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library
14.

Telling Stories in Baudelaire's Spleen De Paris, in Nineteenth-Century French Studies » Read Now
by Cheryl Krueger. 18 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library
15.

Any Where out of This Verse: Baudelaire's Prose Poetics and the Aesthetics of Transgression, in Nineteenth-Century French Studies » Read Now
by Anne Jamison. 30 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library