Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: David R Godine Pub
Date Published: 1985
ISBN-13:9780879234621ISBN:0879234628
Description: Very Good. Size: 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" Tall; Light shelf and edge wear, reading creases in spine, 365 very good, clean, crisp and tight pages. In English and French, illustrated with nine monotypes. Translation by Richard Howard. Former owner's name label on first page. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Sophistocles Press and T. Werner Alurier Ltd., UK
Date Published: 1929
Description: Beresford Egan. Fine. No Jacket. Signed by the Illustrator Hardcover Limited edition, 363/500. Signed by illustrator Beresford Egan. Translated by C. Bower Alcock. "For private circulation and sold only to subscribers. " Boards covered in green crushed-felt material patterned in Art Deco geometric swirls. Paper title label glued to upper front corner. Color frontispiece of "imaginary portrait of Baudelaire" protected by tissue guard. Fifteen full-page b & w erotic line drawings and various ... read more
Description: Satisfaction Guaranteed. Shipped quickly. 1993. Paperback. Used, very good. Very good overall with light to moderate wear. No dust jacket. read more
Edition: Third Printing
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher, Boston
Date Published: 1988
ISBN-13:9780879234621ISBN:0879234628
Description: Illustrated by Mazur, Michael. Good+ 0879234628. Used in trade paperback. Probably the best translation out there but the sections are sequential rather than side by side. A tight, unmarked copy. One heavy crease to the spine, moderate overall wear to the covers.; Nine Original Monotypes; 8vo 8"-9" tall; 365 pages; WINNER OF THE American Book Award in Translation for 1983, Richard Howard's version of this landmark work of modernist verse, published here in tandem with the French original. ... read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780879234621ISBN:0879234628
Description: Mazur, Michael. Fine. No dust jacket as issued. The complete text of 'The Flowers Of Evil' in a new translation. Illustrated. 400 p. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Editions baudelaire, Paris
Date Published: 1964
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. 229 p. Includes index. attractive small HC. Worn/toned at edges. Age-toned/unmarked textblock. : ightly stained/discolored page edges [jr] read more
What can you say about a person whose very surname has become a synonym for debauchery, for louche and antisocial behavior?
Many people try to live their lives to schock others, at one phase or another of their youth, especially. But for Baudelaire, all this came naturallly. No affectation, as far as I can tell.
I wonder a bit about poeple these days who have the Baudelaire name in France. Do they get tired of explaining all of it....
"My love of literature began at a young age, in part, with French literature. I loved translations of Alexander Dumas and when I grew past romantic adventures, I was entranced at the clinical realist precision of Balzac. I briefly dated a French woman in New York City who begged me to move with her to Marseilles where I would attend the University of Marseilles (she had magically already procured an application) at the expense of French taxpayers (what liberals call "universal education") so long as I learned to speak French in 9 months time. I never left the States and never learned French.
However, if I did learn French, it would be mainly to read Baudelaire in the original. I doubt many readers picking this book up will be aware of the atom bomb it dropped on Paris when it was published. Reading it now it may still sound fresh, irreverent, decadent, and Satanic, but you have to multiply that by a factor of 100 to get the 19th century reaction. To add some perspective, this decadent evil little book of poems dealing with lesbianism, artifice, death, a dog corpse festering and open like the legs of a prostitute...this was circa the Civil War! Baudelaire was lucky he was only fined for "indecency" but a few of the poems were outlawed in France until (are you setting down?) 1949!
I don't want to discuss the poems or do explications of them. Any serious poet should own this book. Baudelaire was a masterful poet, a brilliant critic, he was THE reason Edgar Allen Poe was introduced to the Continent via his translations, and he virtually threw his artistic back out writing these poems. He would never surpass them and would spend years editing the volume and perhaps basking in the rays of their infamy. Baudelaire is a prime example of quality over quantity. I will take Les Fleurs Du Mal over a dozen books of poetry from a lesser poet and he stands head and shoulders over his contemporaries. The French Symbolists were nebulous...rather like a Romantic poet who smoked too much opium. Baudelaire on the other hand, had a keen mind sharp as a knife and wrote verse that was outrageous in its subject matter as it is technically brilliant. You have the tenants of symbolism, the mysterious music of Nature, the sublime, the absinthe-fueled hallucinations, but they are there in Baudelaire with a wicked energy. There are a handful of books in modern times that have shocked. Ulysses, Tropic of Cancer, a few others. One has to read Les Fleurs Du Mal with the understanding that it is among their company."
"What can i say? One of the greats that hits you right in the stomach. something that everyone can go back to. Was one of the originals that made me REALLY try and read/learn french. At least poetry. Have to disagree with people who say hes too dark. I feel that hes just not afraid to addres anything. Within that addres theres the strength to touch: vulnerability, sexuality, the physical body, etc. Isnt true passion seen with the hands; felt with the mouth?"
"I was so taken by this book that I memorized whole passages to repeat if only to myself at various times of the day. As I recall, my friends began to think I was mentally ill. Nevertheless, the power of this book was immense on my life as a college junior, I think, and it caused me to fall in love with everything that was French, cynical and wearing a beret, much like a Parisian waiter on his day off. I actually picked this book up because I loved the name, but it also began a long term love affair not only with Baudelaire, but Rimbaud and especially Verlaine. These poets literally opened up a new level of excitement in me for the depth at which the human spirit could both soar and sink, if one were truly willing to be led. I can still smell the acrid Gauloises cigarettes I smoked, but maybe that was just my imagination walking by the Seine so late at night and thinking these wonderful thoughts!"
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