The Flowers of Evil E-Book

Charles Baudelaire.

• Herausgeber: Raanan Editeur
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Baudelaire was a slow and very attentive worker. However, he often was sidetracked by indolence, emotional distress and illness, and it was not until 1857 that he published Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), his first and most famous volume of poems. Some of these poems had already appeared in the Revue des deux mondes (Review of Two Worlds) in 1855, when they were published by Baudelaire's friend Auguste Poulet Malassis. Some of the poems had appeared as "fugitive verse" in various French magazines during the previous decade.
The principal themes of sex and death were considered scandalous for the period. He also touched on lesbianism, sacred and profane love, metamorphosis, melancholy, the corruption of the city, lost innocence, the oppressiveness of living, and wine. Notable in some poems is Baudelaire's use of imagery of the sense of smell and of fragrances, which is used to evoke feelings of nostalgia and past intimacy.
The book, however, quickly became a byword for unwholesomeness among mainstream critics of the day. Some critics called a few of the poems "masterpieces of passion, art and poetry," but other poems were deemed to merit no less than legal action to suppress them. J. Habas led the charge against Baudelaire, writing in Le Figaro: "Everything in it which is not hideous is incomprehensible, everything one understands is putrid." Baudelaire responded to the outcry in a prophetic letter to his mother:
    "You know that I have always considered that literature and the arts pursue an aim independent of morality. Beauty of conception and style is enough for me. But this book, whose title (Fleurs du mal) says everything, is clad, as you will see, in a cold and sinister beauty. It was created with rage and patience. Besides, the proof of its positive worth is in all the ill that they speak of it. The book enrages people. Moreover, since I was terrified myself of the horror that I should inspire, I cut out a third from the proofs. They deny me everything, the spirit of invention and even the knowledge of the French language. I don't care a rap about all these imbeciles, and I know that this book, with its virtues and its faults, will make its way in the memory of the lettered public, beside the best poems of V. Hugo, Th. Gautier and even Byron."
|Wikipedia|

Leseprobe

SOMMMAIRE

Benediction

Echoes

The Sick Muse

The Venal Muse

The Evil Monk

The Enemy

Ill Luck

Interior Life

Man and the Sea

Beauty

The Ideal

The Giantess

Hymn to Beauty

Exotic Perfume

La Chevelure

Sonnet XXVIII

Posthumous Remorse

The Balcony

The Possessed One

Semper Eadem

All Entire

Sonnet XLIII

The Spiritual Dawn

Evening Harmony

Overcast Sky

Invitation to a Journey

"Causerie"

Autumn Song

Sisina

To a Creolean Lady

Moesta et Errabunda

The Ghost

Autumn Song

Sadness of the Moon-Goddess

Cats

Owls

Music

The Joyous Defunct

The Broken Bell

Spleen

Obsession

Magnetic Horror

The Lid

Bertha's Eyes

The Set of the Romantic Sun

Meditation

To a Passer-by

Illusionary Love

Mists and Rains

The Wine of Lovers

Condemned Women

The Death of the Lovers

The Death of the Poor

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

THE FLOWERS OF EVIL

|LES FLEURS DU MAL|

TRANSLATED BY CYRIL SCOTT

LONDON

ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET

1919

Raanan Éditeur

Digital book777| Publishing 1

Benediction

When by the changeless Power of a Supreme Decree The poet issues forth upon this sorry sphere, His mother, horrified, and full of blasphemy, Uplifts her voice to God, who takes compassion on her. "Ah, why did I not bear a serpent's nest entire, Instead of bringing forth this hideous Child of Doom! Oh cursèd be that transient night of vain desire When I conceived my expiation in my womb!" "Yet since among all women thou hast chosen me To be the degradation of my jaded mate, And since I cannot like a love-leaf wantonly Consign this stunted monster to the glowing grate," "I'll cause thine overwhelming hatred to rebound Upon the cursèd tool of thy most wicked spite. Forsooth, the branches of this wretched tree I'll wound And rob its pestilential blossoms of their might!" So thus, she giveth vent unto her foaming ire, And knowing not the changeless statutes of all times, Herself, amid the flames of hell, prepares the pyre; The consecrated penance of maternal crimes. Yet 'neath th' invisible shelter of an Angel's wing This sunlight-loving infant disinherited, Exhales from all he eats and drinks, and everything The ever sweet ambrosia and the nectar red. He trifles with the winds and with the clouds that glide, About the way unto the Cross, he loves to sing, The spirit on his pilgrimage; that faithful guide, Oft weeps to see him joyful like a bird of Spring. All those that he would cherish shrink from him with fear, And some that waxen bold by his tranquility, Endeavour hard some grievance from his heart to tear, And make on him the trial of their ferocity. Within the bread and wine outspread for his repast To mingle dust and dirty spittle they essay, And everything he touches, forth they slyly cast, Or scourge themselves, if e'er their feet betrod his way. His wife goes round proclaiming in the crowded quads— "Since he can find my body beauteous to behold, Why not perform the office of those ancient gods And like unto them, redeck myself with shining gold?" "I'll bathe myself with incense, spikenard and myrrh, With genuflexions, delicate viandes and wine, To see, in jest, if from a heart, that loves me dear, I cannot filch away the hommages divine." "And when of these impious jokes at length I tire, My frail but mighty hands, around his breast entwined, With nails, like harpies' nails, shall cunningly conspire The hidden path unto his feeble heart to find." "And like a youngling bird that trembles in its nest, I'll pluck his heart right out; within its own blood drowned, And finally to satiate my favourite beast, I'll throw it with intense disdain upon the ground!" Towards the Heavens where he sees the sacred grail The poet calmly stretches forth his pious arms, Whereon the lightenings from his lucid spirit veil The sight of the infuriated mob that swarms. "Oh blest be thou, Almighty who bestowest pain, Like some divine redress for our infirmities, And like the most refreshing and the purest rain, To sanctify the strong, for saintly ecstasies." "I know that for the poet thou wilt grant a chair, Among the Sainted Legion and the Blissful ones, That of the endless feast thou wilt accord his share To him, of Virtues, Dominations and of Thrones." "I know, that Sorrow is that nobleness alone, Which never may corrupted be by hell nor curse, I know, in order to enwreathe my mystic crown I must inspire the ages and the universe." "And yet the buried jewels of Palmyra old, The undiscovered metals and the pearly sea Of gems, that unto me you show could never hold Beside this diadem of blinding brilliancy." "For it shall be engendered from the purest fire Of rays primeval, from the holy hearth amassed, Of which the eyes of Mortals, in their sheen entire, Are but the tarnished mirrors, sad and overcast!"