Charles Baudelaire

Born in Paris, Baudelaire became one of the famous decadent poets, and has been a guide for many depressed people. The way Baudelaire faces his depression is by taking drugs, such as opium, hashish and alcohol. He is also famous for the first translation of Edgar Allan Poe in French. When his Les fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil) appeared in 1857, the author, publisher, and printer were prosecuted and found guilty of obscenity and blasphemy. "You - hypocrite Reader - my double - my brother!". In the prefatory poem of "Les fleurs du mal" Baudelaire makes his reader as guilty of sins and lies as the poet:

If poison, arson, sex, narcotics, knives
have not yet ruined us and stitched their quick,
loud patterns on the canvas of our lives,
it is because our souls are still too sick.

Six poems were deleted from the work. Before 1949, when his work has been reevaluated, he was considered a drug-addict and a very vulgar author because of his poems, too futurist for the 19th century.

Many of his poems were influenced by his interest in les correspondances - synaesthesia. Synaesthesia is the mixing of the senses, that is, the ability to smell a color or see a sound. He wrote several poems about the subject itself, such as "Correspondances," and used imagery and symbolism based on the experiences of synaesthesiacs. In general, Baudelaire was a sensualist, in love with sensations, and he tried to experience them and express them in muddled abundance.

Many of his works have been published after his death.

He is buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris.

His writings:

Salon de 1845, 1845
Salon de 1846, 1846
LA FANFARIO, 1847
Les fleurs du mal, 1857
Les paradis artificiels, 1860
RÉFLEXIONS SUR QUELQUES-UNS DE MES CONTEMPORAINS, 1861
LE PEINTURE DE LA VIE MODERNE, 1963
CURIOSITÉS ESTHÉTIQUES, 1868
L'art romantique, 1868
LE SPLEEN DE PARIS/PETITS POÉMES EN PROSE, 1869
OEUVRES POSTHUMES ET CORRESPONDANCE GÉNÉRALE, 1887-1907
FUSÉES, 1897
MON COEUR MIS À NU, 1897
OEUVRES COMPLÈTES, 1922-53 (19 vols.)
Mirror of Art, 1955
The Essence of Laughter, 1956
CURIOSITÉS ESTHÉTIQUES, 1962
The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays, 1964
Baudelaire as a Literary Critic, 1964
Arts in Paris 1845-1862, 1965
Selected Writings on Art and Artist, 1972
Selected Letters of Charles Baudelaire, 1986
Critique d'art; Critique musicale, 1992

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