French poet Charles Baudelaire's influence in poetry is mainly from his introduction of the themes of loneliness, hopelessness and decay, which came to dominate much of modern poetry. He was best known for his masterpiece, The Flowers of Evil (Les fleurs du mal,) a collection of poetry.
Brief Biography of Charles Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire was born on April 9, 1821, in Paris, France. He used the city as setting in most of his poems. After his father died, he was unhappy after his mother remarried to a strict soldier and disciplinarian.
Baudelaire went on a sea voyage to India after he graduated from university. On his passage to the island of Mauritius, he fell in love with Jean Duval, a daughter of a prostitute. She became his longest romantic attachment who also became an inspiration for his poetry. He called her a Black Venus.
Returning to Paris four years later, Baudelaire, now in his early 20s, inherited his father's fortune and settled into a life of luxury womanizing, frequenting brothels, and squandering his inheritance. Despite his extravagant life and sexual liaisons, he never abandoned his literary pursuits.
In his last years, Baudelaire suffered from illness mainly accounted from drug abuse and perhaps for sexual meanderings. He began writing less. He died on August 31, 1867, aged 46.
The Flowers of Evil
Les fleur du mal (The Flowers of Evil) is considered his masterpiece. It is a poetry collection including 101 poems, some of which are sonnets. The book was published when he was 36-years-old. It is considered to be among the greatest works in French literature. The collection creates a dark and ugly view of urban life but with such beautiful poetic imagery that he was often spoken of as the French Dante, referring to the Italian Poet Dante.
Baudelaire's descriptions of the undesirable side of human nature shocked readers those times. Like his contemporary Gustave Flaubert, famous for Madame Bovary, he was tried and convicted of obscenity and immorality, and six of his poems were banned from publication.
Last Words on Baudelaire
Despite his radical ways, Charles Baudelaire was an influential French poet who became well-known for his writings. His poetry had an influence on T.S. Eliot who wrote an essay on Baudelaire in 1930, rationalizing his "morbidity of temperament." Baudelaire was the first to translate into French the eerie tales of American horror writer, Edgar Allan Poe.
Works by Charles Baudelaire
- La Fanfarlo, 1847
- The Flowers of Evil, 1857, republished with additions, 1861
- Artificial Paradises, 1860
- Little Prose Poems, 1869, published after his death
Sources:
- Goring, Rosemary, Ed. Larousse Dictionary of Writers. New York: Larousse, 1994.
- McGovern, Una, Ed. Chambers Biographical Dictionary. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers, 2002.
- Payne, Tom. The A-Z of Great Writers. London: Carlton, 1997.
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