Les Fleurs du mal
A controversial volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire.
Les Fleurs du mal (French pronunciation: [le flœʁ dy mal]; English: The Flowers of Evil) is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire. Though it was extremely controversial upon publication, with six of its poems censored due to their immorality, it is now considered a major work of French poetry.
- author
- Charles Baudelaire
- language
- French
- genre
- Poetry
- movements
- Symbolist, modernist
- notable_sections
- Spleen et Idéal, Tableaux Parisiens, Le Vin, Fleurs du mal, Révolte, La Mort
Lore & Background
Baudelaire dedicated the book to his contemporary poet Théophile Gautier. The foreword, Au Lecteur, identifies Satan with the legendary alchemist Hermes Trismegistus and calls boredom the worst of miseries. The poems frequently break with tradition, using suggestive images and unusual forms, and deal with themes relating to decadence and eroticism, particularly focusing on suffering and its relationship to original sin, disgust toward evil and oneself, obsession with death, and aspiration toward an ideal world.
Reader's Guide
Les Fleurs du mal had a powerful influence on several notable French poets, including Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, and Stéphane Mallarmé.
Did You Know?
- Upon reading the poem 'Le Cygne' from Les Fleurs du mal, Victor Hugo announced that Baudelaire had created 'un nouveau frisson' in literature.
- The foreword 'Au Lecteur' identifies Satan with the legendary alchemist Hermes Trismegistus.
More in Poetry Collections And Epic Poems 1-22
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