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Les Fleurs du Mal (literal trans. "The Flowers of Evil") is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire, important in the symbolist and modernist movements. The subject matter of these poems deals with themes relating to decadence and eroticism. Bust of Homer, one of the earliest European poets, in the British Museum Poetry (ancient Greek: ποιεω (poieo) = I create) is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ...
Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (April 9, 1821 – August 31, 1867) was one of the most influential French poets. ...
Symbolism is the systematic or creative use of arbitrary symbols as abstracted representations of concepts or objects and the distinct relationships inbetween, as they define both context and the narrower definition of terms. ...
Le Corbusiers Villa Savoye, 1929-30: The modern style is noted for its rigorous geometrical forms, and became adopted internationally, though not without continuing controversy Modernism in the cultural historical sense is generally defined as the new artistic and literary styles that emerged in the decades before 1914 as...
The initial publication of the book was arranged in five thematically segregated sections:
- Spleen et Idéal (Spleen and Ideal)
- Fleurs du Mal (Flowers of Evil)
- Révolte (Revolt)
- Le Vin (Wine)
- La Mort (Death)
The foreword to the volume, blasphemously defining Satan as "thrice-great", and calling boredom the worst of miseries, neatly sets the general tone of what is to follow: Gustave Dores depiction of Satan from John Miltons Paradise Lost Satan (שָׂטָן Standard Hebrew Satan, Latin Sátanas, Tiberian Hebrew Śāṭān; Aramaic שִׂטְנָא Śiṭnâ: both words mean Adversary; accuser) is an angel, demon, or minor god in many religions. ...
Hermes Trismegistus (Latin for Hermes the thrice-greatest, Greek: Ερμης ο Τρισμεγιστος) is the syncretism of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian Thoth. ...
Si le viol, le poison, le poignard, l'incendie,
N'ont pas encore brodé de leurs plaisants dessins
Le canevas banal de nos piteux destins,
C'est que notre âme, hélas! n'est pas assez hardie.
- If rape and poison, dagger and burning,
- Have still not embroidered their pleasant designs
- On the banal canvas of our pitiable destinies,
- It's because our souls, alas, are not bold enough!
The preface concludes with the following malediction:
C'est l'Ennui!—l'oeil chargé d'un pleur involontaire,
Il rêve d'échafauds en fumant son houka.
Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat,
—Hypocrite lecteur,—mon semblable,—mon frère!
- It's Boredom!- his eye brimming with spontaneous tear
- He dreams of the gallows in the haze of his hookah.
- You know him, reader, this delicate monster,
- Hypocritical reader, my likeness, my brother!
The author and the publisher were prosecuted under the regime of the Second Empire as an outrage aux bonnes mœurs (trans. "an insult to public decency"). As a consequence of this prosecution, Baudelaire was fined 300 francs. Six poems from the work were suppressed and the ban on their publication was not lifted in France until 1949. On the other hand, upon reading Les Fleurs du Mal, Victor Hugo announced that Baudelaire had created "un nouveau frisson" (a new shudder, a new thrill) in literature. 1949 is a common year starting on Saturday. ...
Victor Hugo Victor Hugo (February 26, 1802 – May 22, 1885) was a French author, the most important of the Romantic authors in the French language. ...
In the wake of the prosecution a second edition was issued in 1861 which added 32 new poems, removed the 6 suppressed poems and added a new section entitled Tableaux Parisiens. 1861 is a common year starting on Tuesday. ...
A posthumous third edition with a preface by Théophile Gautier and including some previously unpublished poems was issued in 1868. Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier (August 31, 1811 - October 23, 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist and literary critic. ...
1868 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...
Les Fleurs du Mal is also the title of a painting by the artist Georges Roualt.
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