The Flowers of Evil : Bilingual Edition

2022 Reprint of the 1954 edition.  Exact facsimile of the original edition and not reproduced with Optical Recognition. Text in French and English on opposing pages.  The Flowers of Evil, or Les Fleurs Du Mal in French, includes nearly all Baudelaire's poetry, written from 1840 until his death in August 1867. First published in 1857, it was important in the symbolist -including painting- and modernist movements. 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. The poems in Les Fleurs Du Mal frequently break with tradition, using suggestive images and unusual forms.  They 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. The work had a powerful influence on several notable French poets, including Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, and Stephane Mallarme.

This translation represents a break with the tradition of rendering the Fleurs Du Mal into rhymed English verse. Its primary aim is accuracy. The original French verse is printed on the left hand page of the opened book, and the English translation on the right side, making a comparison of the texts quite simple. Unhampered by the necessity of rhyming, the translator was able to create an extremely faithful rendition of this masterpiece. Not only is the meaning rendered accurately but the characteristic Baudelairean imagery is reproduced in all its vividness and beauty. The translation is complete and contains all the one hundred and fifty-seven poems of the Fleurs du mal.

The architecture of the work, to which Baudelaire attached so much importance and which is essential to a complete understanding of the poems, has been scrupulously respected. The commentaries were drawn up after a thorough study of all the critical works on the Fleurs Du Mal which have appeared since the poet's death in 1867.