Les Fleurs du mal

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For other uses, see Les Fleurs du mal (disambiguation).

The first edition of Les Fleurs du mal with author's notes.

Les Fleurs du mal (often translated The Flowers of Evil) is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire. First published in 1857, it was important in the symbolist and modernist movements. The subject matter of these poems deals with themes relating to decadence and eroticism.

[edit] Overview

The initial publication of the book was arranged in five thematically segregated sections:

Spleen et Idéal (Spleen and Ideal)
Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil)
Révolte (Revolt)
Le Vin (Wine)
La Mort (Death)

The foreword to the volume, identifying Satan with the pseudonymous alchemist Hermes Trismegistus and calling boredom the worst of miseries, neatly sets the general tone of what is to follow:

Si le viol, le poison, le poignard, l'incendie,
N'ont pas encore brodé de leurs plaisants dessins
Le canevas banal de nos piteux destins,
C'est que notre âme, hélas! n'est pas assez hardie.

If rape and poison, dagger and burning,

Have still not embroidered their pleasant designs

On the banal canvas of our pitiable destinies,

It's because our souls, alas, are not bold enough!

The preface concludes with the following malediction:

C'est l'Ennui! —l'œil chargé d'un pleur involontaire,
Il rêve d'échafauds en fumant son houka.
Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat,
—Hypocrite lecteur,—mon semblable,—mon frère!

It's Ennui! — his eye brimming with spontaneous tear

He dreams of the gallows in the haze of his hookah.

You know him, reader, this delicate monster,

Hypocritical reader, my likeness, my brother!

"Ennui" is left untranslated here, as "boredom" does not accurately portray Baudelaire's intended meaning. "Ennui" means an oppressive boredom that induces listlessness.

[edit] Literary significance and criticism

The author and the publisher were prosecuted under the regime of the Second Empire as an outrage aux bonnes mœurs (trans. "an insult to public decency"). As a consequence of this prosecution, Baudelaire was fined 300 francs. Six poems from the work were suppressed and the ban on their publication was not lifted in France until 1949. These poems were "Lesbos", "Femmes damnés (À la pâle clarté)" (or "Women Doomed (In the pale glimmer...)"), "Le Léthé" (or "Lethe"), "À celle qui est trop gaie" (or "To Her Who Is Too Gay"), "Les Bijoux" (or "The Jewels"), and " Les "Métamorphoses du Vampire" (or "The Vampire's Metamorphoses"). These were later published in Brussels in a small volume entitled Les Épaves (Jetsam).

On the other hand, upon reading "The Swan" or "Le Cygne" from Les Fleurs du mal, Victor Hugo announced that Baudelaire had created "un nouveau frisson" (a new shudder, a new thrill) in literature.

In the wake of the prosecution a second edition was issued in 1861 which added 32 new poems, removed the six suppressed poems and added a new section entitled Tableaux Parisiens.

A posthumous third edition with a preface by Théophile Gautier and including 14 previously unpublished poems was issued in 1868.

[edit] Cultural references

Dead Can Dance's second album, 1985's Spleen and Ideal, was named after the first passage in the poem.
Folk band Spires that in the Sunset Rise take their name from a line in "The Voyage"^[1]
Defunct Canadian rock band The Tea Party's song "Fire in the Head" from their third album, Splendor Solis, refers to "Flowers of Evil" in its chorus.