Charles Baudelaire

Charles-Pierre Baudelaire (9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet, essayist, translator, and art critic. His poetic works are characterized by a masterful command of rhythm and rhyme, incorporating an exoticism derived from the Romantic movement, and drawing inspiration from observations of everyday existence.

His most renowned creation, a collection of lyric poetry titled Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), explores the evolving concept of beauty within the context of mid-19th century Paris, a city undergoing rapid industrialization and transformation due to Haussmann's urban renovations. Baudelaire's distinctive approach to prose-poetry significantly impacted subsequent generations of poets, notably Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, and Stéphane Mallarmé. He is credited with coining the term 'modernity' (modernité) to describe the transient nature of urban life and the artist's imperative to encapsulate such experiences. Marshall Berman recognized Baudelaire as the inaugural Modernist figure.

Early life

Charles Baudelaire was born in Paris, France, on April 9, 1821, and was baptized two months subsequent to his birth at Saint-Sulpice Catholic church. His father, Joseph-François Baudelaire, held a position as a senior civil servant and was also an amateur artist. At 60 years old, he was 34 years senior to Baudelaire's mother, Caroline (née Dufaÿs), who was 26; she was Joseph-François's second spouse.

Joseph-François passed away during Baudelaire's early years, specifically on February 10, 1827, at rue Hautefeuille in Paris. In the subsequent year, Caroline entered into marriage with Lieutenant Colonel Jacques Aupick, who would later serve as a French ambassador to several European noble courts.

Biographers frequently identify this period as pivotal, positing that Baudelaire's displacement from being the exclusive recipient of his mother's affection resulted in a profound trauma, which partially accounts for the later excesses observed in his life. He conveyed in a letter to her, "There was in my childhood a period of passionate love for you." Throughout his professional life, Baudelaire consistently solicited financial assistance from his mother, frequently assuring her of imminent lucrative publishing or journalistic opportunities.

Baudelaire received his education in Lyon, residing there as a boarder. At the age of 14, a classmate characterized him as "considerably more refined and distinguished than any of our fellow pupils... we are bound to one another... by shared tastes and sympathies, the precocious love of fine works of literature."

Baudelaire's academic performance was inconsistent, marked by periods of diligence interspersed with tendencies towards "idleness." Subsequently, he enrolled at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, pursuing legal studies, a common path for individuals undecided about a specific profession. During this time, he started associating with prostitutes and potentially contracted gonorrhea and syphilis. Additionally, he accumulated significant debts, primarily for apparel.

After completing his degree in 1839, he communicated to his brother, "I don't feel I have a vocation for anything." While his stepfather envisioned a career in law or diplomacy for him, Baudelaire opted instead to pursue a literary path. His mother subsequently reflected: "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."

In 1841, his stepfather dispatched him on a journey to Calcutta, India, with the intention of curbing his profligate lifestyle. This voyage furnished him with vivid impressions of maritime environments, sailing, and foreign harbors, elements he subsequently incorporated into his poetic works. Baudelaire later embellished the details of his curtailed trip, constructing a personal mythology around his youthful travels and encounters, such as "riding on elephants."

Upon his return to the Parisian taverns, he commenced the composition of several poems for "Les Fleurs du Mal." At the age of 21, he inherited a substantial sum, much of which he dissipated within a few years. Consequently, his family secured a legal decree to place his assets under trust, a decision he vehemently resented. He once contended that permitting him to experience financial failure would have been the most effective method for him to learn fiscal responsibility.

Within artistic communities, Baudelaire gained a reputation as a dandy and an extravagant spender, rapidly depleting a significant portion of his inheritance and allowance. During this era, Jeanne Duval, a French actress, became his mistress. His family disapproved of her. His mother characterized Duval as a "Black Venus" who "tortured him in every way" and exploited him financially at every chance. Baudelaire attempted suicide during this phase of his life.

He participated in the Revolutions of 1848 and contributed articles to a revolutionary publication. Nevertheless, his engagement with politics proved ephemeral, a fact he subsequently acknowledged in his personal journals.

In the early 1850s, Baudelaire faced significant challenges, including declining health, mounting debts, and inconsistent literary production. To evade creditors, he frequently relocated between various lodgings. While he initiated numerous projects that remained unfinished, he successfully completed translations of Edgar Allan Poe's stories.

Following his stepfather's death in 1857, Baudelaire was excluded from the will; however, he found encouragement in the prospect of reconciling with his mother. At the age of 36, he conveyed to her: "believe that I belong to you absolutely, and that I belong only to you." His mother passed away on August 16, 1871, preceding her son's death by nearly four years.

Publishing career

Baudelaire's inaugural published work, an art review titled "Salon of 1845" released under the pseudonym Baudelaire Dufaÿs, garnered immediate notice due to its audacious nature. Many of his critical perspectives, such as his advocacy for Delacroix, were considered innovative for their era, with some views appearing remarkably aligned with the subsequent theories of Impressionist painters.

In 1846, Baudelaire authored his second Salon review, thereby enhancing his reputation as both an advocate and critic of Romanticism. His sustained endorsement of Delacroix as the preeminent Romantic artist attracted considerable attention. The subsequent year saw the publication of Baudelaire's novella, La Fanfarlo.

The Flowers of Evil

Baudelaire was characterized by a deliberate and meticulous work ethic. Nevertheless, he frequently experienced diversions due to indolence, emotional turmoil, and illness, resulting in the publication of Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), his seminal and most renowned poetry collection, not occurring until 1857. A selection of these poems had previously been featured in the Revue des deux mondes (Review of Two Worlds) in 1855, facilitated by Baudelaire's associate Auguste Poulet-Malassis. Additionally, certain poems had been published as "fugitive verse" across various French periodicals throughout the preceding decade.

The collection garnered a modest but discerning readership. However, the primary focus of public scrutiny centered on their thematic content. As Théodore de Banville observed, the impact on contemporary artists was, "immense, prodigious, unexpected, mingled with admiration and with some indefinable anxious fear". Gustave Flaubert, who had recently faced comparable criticism for Madame Bovary (and was subsequently acquitted), expressed his admiration, writing to Baudelaire: "You have found a way to rejuvenate Romanticism...You are as unyielding as marble, and as penetrating as an English mist."

During that era, the dominant themes of sexuality and mortality were widely regarded as scandalous. His work additionally explored topics such as lesbianism, sacred and profane love, metamorphosis, melancholy, urban decay, lost innocence, the burden of existence, and wine. A distinctive feature in several poems is Baudelaire's deployment of olfactory imagery and fragrances, employed to elicit sentiments of nostalgia and former intimacy.

Nevertheless, the collection rapidly acquired a reputation for impropriety among contemporary mainstream critics. While some critics lauded certain poems as "masterpieces of passion, art and poetry," others were considered to warrant legal suppression. J. Habas spearheaded the opposition to Baudelaire, asserting in Le Figaro: "Everything in it which is not hideous is incomprehensible, everything one understands is putrid." Baudelaire addressed this public condemnation in a prescient letter to his mother:

"You know that I have always considered that literature and the arts pursue an aim independent of morality. Beauty of conception and style is enough for me. But this book, whose title (Fleurs du mal) says everything, is clad, as you will see, in a cold and sinister beauty. It was created with rage and patience. Besides, the proof of its positive worth is in all the ill that they speak of it. The book enrages people. Moreover, since I was terrified myself of the horror that I should inspire, I cut out a third from the proofs. They deny me everything, the spirit of invention and even the knowledge of the French language. I don't care a rap about all these imbeciles, and I know that this book, with its virtues and its faults, will make its way in the memory of the lettered public, beside the best poems of V. Hugo, Th. Gautier and even Byron."

Baudelaire, his publisher, and the printer faced successful prosecution for offenses against public morals. They received fines, though Baudelaire avoided imprisonment. Six poems were initially suppressed but later published as Les Épaves (The Wrecks) in Brussels in 1866. A subsequent edition of Les Fleurs du mal, released in 1861, omitted these poems but featured substantial new content. Numerous prominent figures supported Baudelaire and denounced the judgment. Victor Hugo, for instance, wrote to him, stating: "Your fleurs du mal shine and dazzle like stars...I applaud your vigorous spirit with all my might." Baudelaire did not appeal the verdict, yet his fine was subsequently reduced. Almost a century later, on May 11, 1949, Baudelaire was officially vindicated, with the judgment reversed and the six previously banned poems reinstated in France.

In "Au lecteur" ("To the Reader"), the prefatory poem to Les Fleurs du mal, Baudelaire charges his readers with hypocrisy, asserting they are as culpable of sins and falsehoods as the poet himself:

... If rape or arson, poison or the knife

Has wove no pleasing patterns in the stuff

Of this drab canvas we accept as life—

It is because we are not bold enough!

(Roy Campbell's translation)

Final years

Baudelaire subsequently undertook the translation and adaptation of Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. Subsequent works included Petits Poèmes en prose (Small Prose Poems); a collection of art reviews featured in the Pays, Exposition universelle (Country, World Fair); critical analyses of Gustave Flaubert (published in L'Artiste, October 18, 1857) and Théophile Gautier (in Revue contemporaine, September 1858); various articles contributed to Eugène Crépet's Poètes français (French Poets); Les Paradis artificiels: opium et haschisch (Artificial Paradises: Opium and Hashish) (1860); and Un Dernier Chapitre de l'histoire des oeuvres de Balzac (A Final Chapter of the History of Balzac's Works) (1880). The latter originated as an article titled "Comment on paye ses dettes quand on a du génie" ("How One Pays One's Debts When One Has Genius"), where Baudelaire directed criticism toward his associates Honoré de Balzac, Théophile Gautier, and Gérard de Nerval.

By 1859, Baudelaire exhibited noticeable aging, a consequence of his illnesses, prolonged laudanum use, chronic stress, and financial hardship. Eventually, his mother relented, consenting to his temporary residence with her in Honfleur. In the seaside town, Baudelaire found peace and productivity, exemplified by his poem Le Voyage, composed during this period. In 1860, he emerged as an ardent proponent of Richard Wagner.

However, his financial difficulties intensified, particularly following the bankruptcy of his publisher, Poulet Malassis, in 1861. In 1864, he relocated from Paris to Belgium, partly motivated by the prospect of selling his work's rights and delivering lectures. His enduring, intermittent relationship with Jeanne Duval persisted, and he provided her support until his death. While his relationships with actress Marie Daubrun and courtesan Apollonie Sabatier provided considerable inspiration, they ultimately yielded no lasting personal satisfaction. He consumed opium, and in Brussels, he commenced excessive alcohol consumption. Baudelaire experienced a severe stroke in 1866, leading to subsequent paralysis. Following over a year of aphasia, he was administered the last rites of the Catholic Church. His final year was spent in a semi-paralyzed condition across various "maisons de santé" in Brussels and Paris, where he passed away on August 31, 1867. His funeral took place at the Saint-Honoré d'Eylau church, attended by a few dozen individuals. Baudelaire's remains are interred in the Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris.

Numerous works by Baudelaire were published posthumously. Subsequent to his death, his mother settled his considerable debts and found solace in Baudelaire's burgeoning renown. She remarked, "I see that my son, for all his faults, has his place in literature." She survived him by four years.

Poetry

Who 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. This obsessive idea is above all a child of giant cities, of the intersecting of their myriad relations.

Charles Baudelaire stands as a pivotal innovator in French literary history. While his poetic style drew inspiration from early 19th-century French Romantic poets, its meticulous focus on formal verse elements aligns it more closely with the contemporary Parnassian movement. The thematic and tonal elements of his oeuvre diverge from the Romantic ideals of nature's supremacy and humanity's inherent goodness, which were often articulated through rhetorical, effusive, and public declarations. Instead, Baudelaire embraced a novel urban sensibility, characterized by an exploration of individual moral complexity, an engagement with vice (often associated with decadence), and an appreciation for refined sensual and aesthetic experiences. His poetry frequently employed urban subjects—such as the city itself, its crowds, and individual passers-by—all rendered in meticulously structured verse, occasionally imbued with a cynical and ironic tone. Formally, his innovative use of sound to evoke atmosphere and his deployment of "symbols"—images acquiring expanded significance within a poem—indicated a shift towards conceiving the poem as a self-referential entity. This concept was subsequently elaborated by Symbolist poets like Paul Verlaine and Stéphane Mallarmé, both of whom recognized Baudelaire's pioneering contributions.

While his innovations in versification and his theories of symbolism and "correspondences" are fundamental to understanding his literary merit, critical discourse frequently examines other facets of his work. These include the portrayal of women, the theological underpinnings of his writings and his purported advocacy of "satanism," his explorations of drug-induced altered states of consciousness, the archetype of the dandy, his perspective on democracy and its individual ramifications, his engagement with contemporary spiritual ambiguities, his critiques of the bourgeoisie, and his championing of modern music and painting, exemplified by figures such as Richard Wagner and Delacroix. Baudelaire notably transformed Paris into a central subject of modern poetry, vividly animating the city's intricate details for his readership.

Critiques

Baudelaire actively engaged with the artistic currents of his era. As a critic and essayist, he offered extensive and insightful commentary on prominent figures and prevailing themes within French culture. Known for his candor, he often adopted an undiplomatic and sometimes verbally aggressive stance towards both allies and adversaries, which occasionally proved detrimental to his objectives. His extensive network of associates included notable figures such as Gustave Courbet, Honoré Daumier, Félicien Rops, Franz Liszt, Champfleury, Victor Hugo, Gustave Flaubert, and Balzac.

Edgar Allan Poe

In 1847, Baudelaire encountered the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, discovering narratives and verses that, he asserted, had long resided in his own mind but had yet to materialize. Baudelaire regarded Poe as a literary forerunner and sought to establish himself as Poe's French contemporary equivalent. From that period until 1865, Baudelaire dedicated significant effort to translating Poe's oeuvre, and his renditions garnered widespread acclaim. Although not the inaugural French translator of Poe, Baudelaire's "scrupulous translations" were widely regarded as superior. These translations were published under titles such as Histoires extraordinaires (Extraordinary Stories) in 1856, Nouvelles histoires extraordinaires (New Extraordinary Stories) in 1857, Aventures d'Arthur Gordon Pym, Eureka, and Histoires grotesques et sérieuses (Grotesque and Serious Stories) in 1865. Two critical essays on Poe are included in his Œuvres complètes (Complete Works), specifically in volumes V and VI.

Eugène Delacroix

Baudelaire was a fervent admirer of the Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix, whom he famously described as "a poet in painting." He also assimilated many of Delacroix's aesthetic principles, as articulated in the painter's journals. In his "Salon of 1846," Baudelaire elaborated on Delacroix's art, stating, "As one contemplates his series of pictures, one seems to be attending the celebration of some grievous mystery...This grave and lofty melancholy shines with a dull light.. plaintive and profound like a melody by Weber." Despite his appreciation for Baudelaire's insights, Delacroix maintained a certain distance, especially following the controversy surrounding Les Fleurs du mal. In private correspondence, Delacroix remarked that Baudelaire "really gets on my nerves" and conveyed his dissatisfaction with Baudelaire's recurring observations concerning "melancholy" and "feverishness."

Richard Wagner

Baudelaire possessed no formal musical education and was familiar with few composers apart from Beethoven and Weber. Weber, who employed the leitmotif and developed the concept of the "total artwork" (Gesamtkunstwerk), served as a precursor to Wagner in certain respects, earning Baudelaire's profound admiration for both innovations. Prior to experiencing Wagner's compositions firsthand, Baudelaire meticulously examined critical reviews and scholarly essays concerning the composer, subsequently formulating his own interpretations. These impressions were later articulated in his acclaimed non-technical analysis of Wagner, notably in his essay "Richard Wagner et Tannhäuser à Paris." Baudelaire's engagement with music was characterized by intense passion and psychological depth. He famously declared, "Music engulfs me like the sea." Following his attendance at three Wagner concerts in Paris in 1860, Baudelaire conveyed to the composer a profound sense of "pride and joy in understanding, in being possessed, in being overwhelmed, a truly sensual pleasure like that of rising in the air." Baudelaire's literary contributions were instrumental in elevating Wagner's stature and fostering the widespread cult of Wagnerism across Europe in subsequent decades.

Théophile Gautier

The writer and poet Gautier commanded Baudelaire's respect for his formal perfection and linguistic mastery, despite Baudelaire's perception that Gautier lacked profound emotional and spiritual depth. Both authors endeavored to articulate the artist's internal vision, a concept previously articulated by Heinrich Heine: "In artistic matters, I am a supernaturalist. I believe that the artist cannot find all his forms in nature, but that the most remarkable are revealed to him in his soul." Gautier's recurring contemplations on mortality and the existential dread of life significantly influenced Baudelaire's literary works. As an acknowledgment of their friendship and shared artistic perspective, Baudelaire dedicated Les Fleurs du mal to Gautier.

Édouard Manet

Manet and Baudelaire maintained a close companionship beginning around 1855. During the early 1860s, Baudelaire frequently joined Manet on daily sketching excursions and engaged with him in social settings. Manet provided financial assistance to Baudelaire and managed his affairs, especially during Baudelaire's time in Belgium. Baudelaire urged Manet to pursue his unique artistic direction and resist succumbing to critical pressures. He observed, "Manet has great talent, a talent which will stand the test of time. But he has a weak character. He seems to me crushed and stunned by shock." Manet's painting Music in the Tuileries features portraits of his acquaintances, including Théophile Gautier, Jacques Offenbach, and Baudelaire. Although the precise direction of influence between them remains challenging to ascertain, both Manet and Baudelaire explored and articulated shared thematic concerns within their distinct artistic practices. Baudelaire commended the contemporary nature of Manet's subject matter, asserting that "almost all our originality comes from the stamp that 'time' imprints upon our feelings." When Manet's renowned Olympia (1865), a depiction of a nude prostitute, incited public outrage due to its stark realism combined with Renaissance artistic allusions, Baudelaire privately supported his friend, refraining from a public defense as he was unwell at the time. Following Baudelaire's return from Belgium after suffering a stroke, Manet and his wife regularly visited him at the nursing home, where she would play selections from Wagner on the piano.

Nadar

Nadar (Félix Tournachon) distinguished himself as a prominent caricaturist, scientist, and pioneering photographer. Baudelaire held Nadar, a close friend, in high esteem, remarking, "Nadar is the most amazing manifestation of vitality." Their social circles overlapped, and Baudelaire established numerous connections through Nadar. Jeanne Duval, Nadar's former mistress, became Baudelaire's mistress approximately in 1842. Baudelaire developed an interest in photography during the 1850s, yet he critiqued its status as an art form, advocating instead for its reorientation to "its real purpose, which is that of being the servant to the sciences and arts." According to Baudelaire, photography ought not to intrude upon "the domain of the impalpable and the imaginary." Nadar maintained his steadfast friendship with Baudelaire until the latter's final days, subsequently composing his obituary for Le Figaro.

Philosophy

Many of Baudelaire's philosophical assertions were perceived as scandalous and deliberately provocative during his era. His writings encompassed a broad spectrum of topics, eliciting widespread criticism and indignation. Alongside Edgar Allan Poe, Baudelaire identified the arch-reactionary Joseph de Maistre as his intellectual mentor (maître à penser) and progressively embraced aristocratic perspectives. In his personal journals, he recorded:

There is no form of rational and assured government save an aristocracy. [...] There are but three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the warrior and the poet. To know, to kill and to create. The rest of mankind may be taxed and drudged, they are born for the stable, that is to say, to practise what they call professions.

Influence and legacy

Baudelaire significantly shaped the trajectory of modern French and English literature. Prominent French authors who succeeded him offered substantial tributes. Four years following Baudelaire's death, Arthur Rimbaud lauded him in a letter as "the king of poets, a true God." In 1895, Stéphane Mallarmé commemorated Baudelaire with the publication of "Le Tombeau de Charles Baudelaire," a sonnet dedicated to his memory. Marcel Proust, in a 1922 essay, declared Baudelaire, alongside Alfred de Vigny, to be "the greatest poet of the nineteenth century."

Within the English-speaking literary sphere, Edmund Wilson attributed the initial impulse for the Symbolist movement to Baudelaire's translations of Poe. In 1930, T. S. Eliot contended that, despite Baudelaire's genius not yet being fully appreciated even in France, his "technical mastery, which can hardly be overpraised, has made his verse an inexhaustible study for later poets, not only in his own language." During an April 1948 lecture in Aix-en-Provence, titled "Edgar Allan Poe and France" (Edgar Poe et la France), Eliot declared, "I am an English poet of American origin who learned his art under the aegis of Baudelaire and the Baudelairian lineage of poets." Eliot further incorporated direct allusions to Baudelaire's poetry into his own works, notably quoting the final line of Baudelaire's "Au Lecteur" at the conclusion of Section I of The Waste Land.

Concurrently, while Eliot affirmed Baudelaire's significance from a broadly conservative and explicitly Christian standpoint, left-wing critics like Wilson and Walter Benjamin approached his importance from a distinctly different perspective. Benjamin translated Baudelaire's Tableaux Parisiens into German, accompanying it with a substantial essay on translation as its foreword.

During the late 1930s, Benjamin centered his monumental Das Passagenwerk, a materialist assessment of 19th-century culture, on Baudelaire. Benjamin considered Baudelaire's significance to stem from his analyses of the crowd, urban life, and modernity. He posited that, within Les Fleurs du mal, "the specific devaluation of the world of things, as manifested in the commodity, is the foundation of Baudelaire's allegorical intention."

François Porché published a poetry collection titled Charles Baudelaire: Poetry Collection, dedicated to Baudelaire's memory.

Barry Perowne's 1974 novel, A Singular Conspiracy, offers a fictionalized account of Edgar Allan Poe's undocumented period from January to May 1844. In this narrative, Poe becomes entangled with a young Baudelaire in a scheme to blackmail Baudelaire's stepfather, thereby securing Baudelaire's inheritance.

Vanderbilt University has compiled one of the world's most extensive research collections dedicated to Baudelaire.

Works

• Salon de 1845
• Salon de 1846
• La Fanfarlo (1847)
• L'Art romantique (1852; 1869)
• Les Fleurs du mal (1857; 1861; 1868), also known as The Flowers of Evil
• Salon de 1859
• Les Paradis artificiels (1860), also known as Artificial Paradises
• Réflexions sur quelques-uns de mes contemporains (1861)
• Le Peintre de la vie moderne (1863), also known as The Painter of Modern Life

Posthumous publications in French

• Œuvres complètes (Michel Lévy Frères, 1868–70)
  • Vol. 1: Les Fleurs du mal
  • Vol. 2: Curiosités esthétiques
  • Vol. 3: L'Art romantique
  • Vol. 4: Petits poèmes en prose or Le Spleen de Paris (Paris Spleen)
  • Vol. 5: Histoires extraordinaires (Translation of Poe's works)
  • Vol. 6: Nouvelles Histoires extraordinaires (Translations of Poe's works)
  • Vol. 7: Aventures d'Arthur Gordon Pym (Translation of Poe's work)

Posthumous Works and Unpublished Correspondence, edited by Eugène Crépet (Maison Quantin, 1887). This collection features Flares, My Heart Laid Bare, and selections from The True Belgium (also known as Poor Belgium or Belgium Unveiled)

Complete Works, edited by Jacques Crépet and Claude Pichois (Éditions Conard, 1922–53). This 19-volume edition contains the full text of Poor Belgium

Correspondence, edited by Claude Pichois (Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1973)

Complete Works, edited by Claude Pichois (Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1975–76)

Posthumous English Publications

• Translations from Charles Baudelaire, translated by Richard Herne Shepherd (J.C. Hotten, 1869)
• Intimate Journals, translated by Christopher Isherwood (1930)
• My Heart Laid Bare and Other Prose Writings, translated by Norman Cameron (1950)
• The Mirror of Art: Critical Studies by Baudelaire, translated and edited by Jonathan Mayne (1955)
• The Essence of Laughter and Other Essays, Journals, and Letters (Meridian Books, 1956)
• Baudelaire as a Literary Critic: Selected Essays, translated by Lois Boe Hyslop and Francis E. Hyslop Jr. (1964)
• Arts in Paris 1845–1862 (Phaidon, 1965)
• Selected Writings on Art and Artists, translated by P. E. Charvet (Penguin, 1972)
• Selected Letters of Charles Baudelaire: The Conquest of Solitude, translated by Rosemary Lloyd (University of Chicago Press, 1986)
• My Heart Laid Bare & Other Texts, translated by Rainer J. Hanshe (Contra Mundum Press, 2017)
• Late Fragments: Flares, My Heart Laid Bare, Prose Poems, Belgium Disrobed, translated by Richard Sieburth (Yale University Press, 2022)

References

Notes

Sources

• This article incorporates content from a public domain publication: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Baudelaire, Charles Pierre". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 536–537.Richardson, Joanna (1994). Baudelaire. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-11476-1. OCLC 30736784.Hilton, Frank (2004). Baudelaire in Chains. London: Peter Owen Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7206-1180-9. OCLC 50270710.
• This resource explores the influence of Baudelaire on Bengali poetry.
• Alexander Barykin – The Invitation to Travel
• Harmonie du soir – Tina Noiret
• Moment Magazine — Lemony Snicket on the naming of his protagonists, the Baudelaires

Online texts

• Works by Charles Baudelaire at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Charles Baudelaire at Faded Page (Canada)
• Works by or about Charles Baudelaire at the Internet Archive
• Works by Charles Baudelaire at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• This extensive resource features Baudelaire's poems and prose, including Fleurs du mal, Petit poemes et prose, and Fanfarlo, presented in French.
• Poems by Charles Baudelaire – selected works at Poetry Foundation.
• Baudelaire's poems at Poems Found in Translation
• Baudelaire – Eighteen Poems
• "Baudelaire in English" presents Sean Bonney's experimental and humorous translations of Baudelaire.
• Works by Charles Baudelaire (in French)
• Baudelaire par ses Amis

Single works

• This definitive online presentation of Fleurs du mal features the original French text alongside multiple English translations.
• An illustrated version (8 Mb) of the 1861 edition of Les Fleurs du Mal by Charles Baudelaire.
• "The Rebel," a poem by Baudelaire.
• "Les Foules" (The Crowds), an English translation.