Charles Baudelaire - Part 1

And now (finally!) the article about Charles Baudelaire that I promised you!! Enjoy reading !!

Charles Pierre Baudelaire (pronounced /ˌboʊdəˈlɛər/; French: [ʃaʁl bodlɛʁ]; April 9, 1821 – August 31, 1867) was a nineteenth-century French poet, critic, translator and... drug addict. A controversial figure in his lifetime, Baudelaire's name has become a byword for literary and artistic decadence. At the same time his works, and in particular his book of poetry Les fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), are acknowledged as classics of French literature.

In 1846 and 1847, Baudelaire became acquainted with the works of Poe, in which he found tales and poems that had, he claimed, long existed in his own brain but never taken shape. Baudelaire had much in common with Poe (who died in 1849 at age forty). Both had a similar sensibility and macabre and supernatural turn of mind; both struggled with illness, poverty, and melancholy. Baudelaire saw in Poe a precursor and tried to be his French contemporary counterpart. From this time until 1865, he was largely occupied with translating Poe's works; his translations were widely praised. Baudelaire was not the first French translator of Poe, but his "scrupulous translations" were considered among the best. These were published as Histoires extraordinaires (Extraordinary stories) (1852), Nouvelles histoires extraordinaires (New extraordinary stories) (1857), Aventures d'Arthur Gordon Pym, Eureka, and Histoires grotesques et sérieuses (Grotesque and serious stories) (1865). Two essays on Poe are to be found in his Oeuvres complètes (Complete works).

HIS PHYLOSOPHY:

Many of Baudelaire's philosophical proclamations were considered scandalous and intentionally provocative in his time. He wrote on a wide range of subjects, drawing criticism and outrage from many quarters.

Love

"There is an invincible taste for prostitution in the heart of man, from which comes his horror of solitude. He wants to be 'two'. The man of genius wants to be 'one'... It is this horror of solitude, the need to lose oneself in the external flesh, that man nobly calls 'the need to love'."

 Marriage

"Unable to suppress love, the Church wanted at least to disinfect it, and it created marriage."

 The artist

"The more a man cultivates the arts, the less randy he becomes... Only the brute is good at coupling, and copulation is the lyricism of the masses. To copulate is to enter into another–and the artist never emerges from himself."

"Style is character"

 Pleasure

"Personally, I think that the unique and supreme delight lies in the certainty of doing 'evil'–and men and women know from birth that all pleasure lies in evil."

 Politics

"I have no convictions, as they are understood by the men of my century, because I have no ambition... However, I have some convictions, in a nobler sense, which cannot be understood by the men of my time".

 

(All infos are taken from Wikipedia)

 
Suggested books:

Artificial Paradise

Spleen

Flower Of Evil (poetries collection)

 

THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING OF THE ARTICLE. There's so much more to write about him especially about his phylosophy. I have to work on it because in English it's hard to find material for the article. :P so consider this a little resume, a part 1 xD