Known to his contemporaries primarily as an art critic but ambitious to secure a more lasting
literary legacy Charles Baudelaire a Parisian bohemian spent much of the 1840s composing
gritty often perverse poems that expressed his disgust with the banality of modern city life.
First published in 1857 the book that collected these poems together Les Fleurs du mal was
an instant sensation-earning Baudelaire plaudits and simultaneously disrepute. Only a year
after Gustave Flaubert had endured his own public trial for published indecency (for Madame
Bovary) a French court declared Les Fleurs du mal an offense against public morals and six
poems within it were immediately suppressed (a ruling that would not be reversed until 1949
nearly a century after Baudelaire's untimely death). Subsequent editions expanded on the
original including new poems that have since been recognized as Baudelaire's masterpieces
producing a body of work that stands as the most consequential controversial and influential
book of poetry from the nineteenth century. Acclaimed translator and poet Aaron Poochigian
tackles this revolutionary text with an ear attuned to Baudelaire's lyrical
innovations-rendering them in an assertive blend of full and slant rhymes and fluent iambs (A.
E. Stallings)-and an intuitive feel for the work's dark and brooding mood. Poochigian's version
captures the incantatory almost magical effect of the original-reanimating for today's reader
Baudelaire's unfailing vision that trumpeted the space and light of the future (Patti Smith).
An introduction by Dana Gioia offers a probing reassessment of the supreme artistry of
Baudelaire's masterpiece and an afterword by Daniel Handler explores its continued relevance
and appeal. Featuring the poems in English and French this deluxe dual-language edition allows
readers to commune both with the original poems and with these electric revelatory
translations.
