BAUDELAIRE, CHARLES

born April 9, 1821, Paris, France died Aug. 31, 1867, Paris Charles Baudelaire. in full Charles-pierre Baudelaire French poet, translator, and literary and art critic whose reputation rests primarily on Les Fleurs du mal (1857; The Flowers of Evil), which was perhaps the most important and influential poetry collection published in Europe in the 19th century. Similarly, his Petits pomes en prose (1868; "Little Prose Poems") was the most successful and innovative early experiment in prose poetry of the time. Richard D.E. Burton Additional reading Most of Baudelaire's work has been translated into English. The best complete translation in verse of Les Fleurs du mal is The Flowers of Evil, trans. by James McGowan (1993); the edition by Richard Howard (trans.), Les Fleurs du mal (1982), won an American Book Award in 1984. Charles Baudelaire: Selected Poems, trans. by Carol Clark (1995), contains serviceable prose renderings of the major poems. The Prose Poems and La Fanfarlo, trans. by Rosemary Lloyd (1991), is also recommended. The essential critical writings can be found in Selected Writings on Art and Artists, trans. by P.E. Charvet (1972, reissued as Selected Writings on Art and Literature, 1992).The best biography is Claude Pichois and Jean Ziegler, Baudelaire (1989; originally published in French, 1987). An older work by Enid Starkie, Baudelaire (1933, reissued 1988), is still worth consulting.Alison Fairlie, Baudelaire: Les Fleurs du Mal (1960, reissued 1972); and F.W. Leakey, Baudelaire: Les Fleurs du Mal (1992), are valuable short introductions to the poet's major work. Stimulating and controversial studies of Baudelaire's personality and thought are to be found in Jean-Paul Sartre, Baudelaire (1949, reissued 1967; originally published in French, 1947); and Michel Butor, Histoire Extraordinaire: Essay on a Dream of Baudelaire's (1969; originally published in French, 1961). Walter Benjamin, Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism (1973, reissued 1983; originally published in German, 1969), is the starting point for any discussion of Baudelaire and modernity. Leo Bersani, Baudelaire and Freud (1977), perceptively discusses the love poetry. F.W. Leakey, Baudelaire and Nature (1969), offers an important chronological study of the evolution of his thought. Richard D.E. Burton, Baudelaire in 1859 (1988), discusses Baudelaire's most creative year, and Baudelaire and the Second Republic (1991), examines his shifting political positions. The most stimulating short discussion of the prose poems is contained in Christopher Prendergast, Paris and the Nineteenth Century (1992).