The Flowers Of Evil
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The Flowers Of Evil

4.27 of 5 stars 4.27  ·  rating details  ·  15,711 ratings  ·  421 reviews
The Flowers of Evil, which T.S. Eliot called the greatest example of modern poetry in any language, shocked the literary world of nineteenth century France with its outspoken portrayal of lesbian love, its linking of sexuality and death, its unremitting irony, and its unflinching celebration of the seamy side of urban life. Including the French texts and comprehensive expl...more
Paperback, 72 pages
Published October 15th 2009 by Createspace (first published 1857)
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Mariam Okasha
ليست تجربتي الأولى في قراءة الشعر المترجم ...فقد قرأت بعض شعر دانتي من قبل ..لكن بودلير مختلف
أعتقد أن قدرته على التشبيه قدرة عالية جدا و في كلٍ من قصائدهِ كنت أرى ابداعًا جديدًا لم أعهده من قبل .. في ديوان أزهار الشر أعجبني العديد من القصائد و أعتقد أنه بداية جيدة تؤهلني لأكون معجبة حقيقية بفن بودلير الراقي المميز
Timmy
This is a step towards possession.

Certainly the possession does not last the entire way through, but even in the less interesting or repetitive poems there are some jarring lines, amplified by a soul in Heat.

Like any elevated piece of literature, Flowers of Evil consumed me to such an extent that at times I forgot I was reading words on a page, its intensity moving my mind into some unknown zone where images, thoughts, and recollections screamed by, colliding with each other. So, too, did I fee...more
matt

Here's a recent essay on Baudelaire from the trusty, always-interesting online mag The Millions:
http://www.themillions.com/2013/04/th...

So as to try to follow that, I've got to disclose a bit of an embarrassment. Baudelaire was, for me, the kind of poet only certain kinds of people liked. By this I don't mean Francophiles or the merely pretentious but there was something that set a devotee of C.B. apart from your average earnest, quavering, verbose, nervous poet or poetry fanboy.

It's hard to...more
Kelly
Jan 18, 2008 Kelly rated it 4 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: Francophiles and poetry lovers
Recommended to Kelly by: My European history teacher
After reading Baudelaire, I suddenly find myself wanting to smoke cigarettes and say very cynical things while donning a trendy haircut. Plus, if I didn't read Baudelaire, how could I possibly carry on conversations with pretentious art students?

In all seriousness, though, I wish my French was better, so that I could read it in its intended language. I'm sure it looses something in the translation... but it's still great stuff nonetheless.

And with a title like "Flowers of Evil," how can you go...more
stumbelina
May 08, 2012 stumbelina marked it as to-read  ·  review of another edition
My darling was naked, or nearly, for knowing my heart
she had left on her jewels, the bangles and chains
whose jingling music gave her the conquering air
of a Moorish slave on days her master is pleased

Whenever I hear such insolent harmonies,
that scintillating world of metal and stone
beguiles me altogether, and I am enthralled
by objects whose sound is a synonym for light

For there she lay on the couch, allowing herself
to be adored, a secret smile indulging
the deep and tenacious currents of my love
wh...more
Mai Kais
أزهار الشر فهو من أعظم دوايين الشعر التي ظهرت على مر العصور . صدر هذا الديوان عام 1855م .يقول هنري لوميتير في مقدمته للديوان :


"إن التمزق الذي عانى منه بودلير بين الرغبات الحسية التي عذبته طوال حياته وبين الإيمان الروحى سمة عصره المسيحى الكاثوليكي لتفشي سر هذه الأفكار التي سيطرت على روحه والتي تضمنتها قصائده والواضحةفي كل لغة وصور ورموز شعره "


مقتطفات من أجمل قصائد الديوان :

- القارورة
ألف فكرة كانت ترقد ...شرانق حريرية
راعشة بهدوء في الظلمات الكثيفة
تحلق باجنحتها وتباشر أنطلاقها
مخضبة باللازورد ملا...more
ميّ  أحمد


دراسة موفقة جدا عن شخصية بودلير من إبراهيم ناجي
عن حياته وعلاقاته وخاصة علاقته بوالدته التي لم تكن علاقة سوية


مرفق في الكتاب بعض أشعاره من أزهار الشر

أنصح بالإطلاع عليه
سمية عبد العزيز


وهل للشر أزهار !! يأخذك بودلير الشاعر الفرنسي الشهير في رحلة مع الحسناوات والهررة والبوم والغليون .. رحلة لباريس العجيبة وباريس القذرة !
تشبيهات وصور تنبض بالحياة
James
One of my favorite poets of all time.

Baudelaire emphasized above all the disassociated character of modern experience: the sense that alienation is an inevitable part of our modern world. In his prose, this complexity is expressed via harshness and shifts of mood.

The constant emphasis on beauty and innocence, even alongside the seamier aspects of humanity, reinforce an existentialist ideal that rejects morality and embraces transgression. Objects, sensations, and experiences often clash, implici...more
Julia Boechat Machado
CORRESPONDANCES

La Nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles ;
L’homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l’observent avec des regards familiers.

Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondent
Dans une ténébreuse et profonde unité,
Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clarté,
Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent.

Il est des parfums frais comme des chairs d’enfants,
Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies,
— Et d’autres, corrompus, r...more
Yasiru
This translation for Oxford World's Classics by James N McGowan is wonderful enough that I was compelled to buy it, and is offered next to the French text in this excellent paperback for a degree of transparency I am grateful for even with my limited and very much rusty French.

An indispensable resource too is the site http://fleursdumal.org/ which offers multiple older translations, again along with the original French.
robxyz
In lettura continua, � semplicemente un capolavoro senza tempo. Questa traduzione italiana per� in molti punti mi lascia perplesso, per non dire che mi infastidisce proprio: frasi inutilmente rimaneggiate, parole cambiate, poca fedelt� al testo originale mi fanno essere deluso da questa edizione Feltrinelli. E mi sembra inutile che il traduttore, tale Antonio Prete, si dilunghi un bel sei pagine a raccontarci per filo e per segno come intende lui una traduzione di poesie, se poi trovo ad esempio...more
Lynn Beyrouthy
When it comes to the most beautiful literature in the world, I radically believe in the imperial prominence of Nineteenth century French literature.
Charles Baudelaire is one of the poets that tremendously alimented this conviction.

Originally entitled "Les Lesbiennes" and brazenly delineating sexuality and libidinous desires, the poems which Baudelaire composed in the decade of 1840-1850 were continuously censored until 1857, when his work was published with the title "Les Fleurs du Mal".

The be...more
gauldy
Byron je Byron.

Poezie asi není úplně můj šálek čaje, přesto to nebylo žádné utrpení, jak to často bývá prezentováno.
Konkrétní vydání, co jsem měl v rukou, nabízí překlady Baudelairových básní od sedmi různých Čechů (Fischer, Dyk, Čapek, Jelínek, Kalista, Holan a Hrubín), některé jsou stravitelnější, některé méně, ale především - právě na takovéto kompilaci se dá velice dobře porovnat, jak moc občas básníky przní překladatelé.
Nejvíce mi sedl Hrubín; zdá se mi, samozřejmě čistě subjektivně, že p...more
Lett'
Nous voilà devant l’œuvre la plus imposante de Baudelaire, c’est donc pour cela que je vous propose ma chronique. Je vous l’avoue tout de suite, je n’ai pas lu tout les poèmes présents dans ce recueil, mais seulement ce qui me paraissaient intéressants. Mais j’ai quand même essayer de lire au moins un poème par parties.

Ce poète a vraiment un talent incontestable, il réussit à nous faire un poème au sujet d’une charogne. Je pense que ce poème est le meilleur, car il explique que chaque belle chos...more
Lix Hewett
I picked this up last July or something, but didn't really start reading until late January, so I guess it didn't take forever, but it was a close thing. It's not that it was boring or super complex or anything; my French is just awfully rusty, and it actually just took me three days (technically not that long, since I only worked on it for about ten minutes per day) to read Franciscae meae laudes because I somehow decided it would be a good idea to translate it myself. Anyway, it's a good, soli...more
Leanna
I had no idea what to expect from this. I think maybe I was expecting something like Rimbaud, the only other French poet I've read-- a poetry very dreamy, surreal, and indeterminate (to use Marjorie Perloff's word--i.e., no correspondences in any identifiable reality). Instead, I found a wry, cynical, pessimistic poetry concerned with the macabre and the devious. Baudelaire was known for his French translations of Poe, and it shows! I found Baudelaire's poetry to be quite gothic--an obsession wi...more
David R.  Godine
"Baudelaire revoiced...Howard's achievement is such that we can be confident that his Flowers of Evil will long stand as definitive, a superb guide to France's greatest poet."
The Nation

"Readers of English do not have to take Baudelaire on faith any longer. For the first time he is present among us, vivid and surprisingly intact, in these fine translations."
The New York Times Book Review

"A deft and patient new translation of Les Fleurs Du Mal...Howard, it seems to me, has done what he has set...more
Jamie Martone
Dec 14, 2009 Jamie Martone added it  ·  review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone who likes Edgar Allan Poe but likes more romance
Charles Baudelaire is with out a doubt my favorite poet. He writes with such passion and emotion I can't help but fall in love. I feel like he is speaking to my soul, letting me into his beautiful world.

He had a tortured soul and you can feel his pain in his work. His poem are so beautiful and bewitched with romance. To me he is a deeply intellectual person so much that it is almost a fault. His poems are filled with deep, twisted, and painful thought. In his poems he lets you see through his ey...more
Patrick Gibson
Aug 16, 2009 Patrick Gibson rated it 4 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition
Recommended to Patrick by: James benner
Shelves: poetry
In a Pittsburgh music store I came across a thin book of songs by Herni Duparc, an obscure composer known only for a dozen or so seemingly meager, but as I was to learn, perfect pieces. Each is a miniature masterpiece. When I took them to my coach, he swooned, and then forbid me to study them until I immersed myself in Baudelaire. Who? (I was such a Barbarian.) I had to memorize the poems before a single note of music—to me an unbearable task. Some of the songs ended up in my repertoire for a lo...more
HM
جالب است که خیلی وقت ها اندیشه های بدیع و مترقی از درون اتاق های دربسته و خلوت آدم های تنها و گوشه گیری چون هایدگر و نیما و بودلر بیرون می آید . تقریبا به هر کتاب تاریخ مدرنیته که مراجعه می کنم به نام بودلر بر می خورم

و هر چه هم از سارتر و بنیامین و دیگران درباره اش می خوانم برایم بیشتر در مه فرو می رود

بودلر هر چقدر هم سعی کند تو را بیازارد و از بدی ها بگوید کلام اش لطیف تر و شیرین تر می شود

ترانه محزون - Madrigal triste

مرا چه سود که تو عاقل باشی
زیبا باش و محزون باش
اشک بر زیبایی چهره می افزاید
چون...more
cras culture
for me really somewhere between three star, four star, five star and four and a half star poems. so there's that.
even in these apocalyptic times with horrorshow entertainment such as the evil dead remake (have you seen the preview for that thing? my partner wants to see it and showed me the preview and geeez im afraid its just too much for me) you still get a pretty good shock factor with fluers du mal. full of corpses (or carrions as he calls them too, i think that's a corpse, is it? is it?)...more
Ben
Fantastic! Baudelaire is a very influential poet, tied to both French Symbolism and to Modernism, who is not valued as highly as he should be. Verlaine said of Baudelaire that his "profound originality . . . is to represent powerfully and essentially modern man" and Eliot wrote, "Baudelaire is indeed the greatest exemplar in modern poetry in any language, for his verse and language is the nearest thing to a complete renovation that we have experienced." A champion and translator of the works of...more
Edward
My love of literature began at a young age, in part, with French literature. I loved translations of Alexander Dumas and when I grew past romantic adventures, I was entranced at the clinical realist precision of Balzac. I briefly dated a French woman in New York City who begged me to move with her to Marseilles where I would attend the University of Marseilles (she had magically already procured an application) at the expense of French taxpayers (what liberals call "universal education") so long...more
Rhonda
I was so taken by this book that I memorized whole passages to repeat if only to myself at various times of the day. As I recall, my friends began to think I was mentally ill. Nevertheless, the power of this book was immense on my life as a college junior, I think, and it caused me to fall in love with everything that was French, cynical and wearing a beret, much like a Parisian waiter on his day off. I actually picked this book up because I loved the name, but it also began a long term love aff...more
Alexander Laser-robinson
I have not picked up Fleurs du Mal since I was made to read it in college. Now, as then, I again find myself overpowered by Baudelaire's singular talent for beautifying the most grotesque and vulgar aspects of human life and lusts. He is a genius in crafting the most decadent and purple poetry to glorify the evil flowers springing from our inevitable carnality--hatred, jealousy, fear, and contempt. The book reminds me of the rawness and sensationalism that as a teenager drew me to punk rock and...more
Pete Wyeth
I am new to poetry. When I started reading poetry I would instinctively look for the meaning of the poem and find myself baffled... but then I approached it from a different angle and just allowed the words to float through me. I was struck by how musical it can be and how certain words resonate in your mind.

For me Baudelaire is incredibly musical and dramatic. The words are thrown at you from the page violent and passionate. I suppose what strikes me most about his work is the decadent feel. I...more
Venus
Au-dessus des étangs, au-dessus des vallées,
Des montagnes, des bois, des nuages, des mers,
Par delà le soleil, par delà les éthers,
Par delà les confins des sphères étoilées,
Mon esprit, tu te meus avec agilité,
Et, comme un bon nageur qui se pâme dans l'onde,
Tu sillonnes gaiement l'immensité profonde
Avec une indicible et mâle volupté.
Envole-toi bien loin de ces miasmes morbides ;
Va te purifier dans l'air supérieur,
Et bois, comme une pure et divine liqueur,
Le feu clair qui remplit les espaces limpid...more
Terence
Aug 28, 2009 Terence rated it 5 of 5 stars  ·  review of another edition
Recommended to Terence by: New Book shelf at library
Shelves: poetry
Flowers of Evil was an entirely serendipitous impulse check-out from my local library. I can only imagine that what caught my eye was the title - Flowers of Evil - who could resist? So I pulled it from the shelf, opened it up at random, read a few verses, and said to myself "This isn't bad."

Not only was it "not bad" but it was extraordinarily good; good enough that Baudelaire has joined the list of authors I'll pay money for.

It's random events like finding authors whose work "speaks to me" in so...more
Constance
Il me semble très bizarre de donner une évaluation à Les Fleurs du mal parce que c'est en effet le livre que tout le monde doit lire; un livre canonique, kaléidoscopique, brillant. Le recueil est au même temps un oeuvre très irrévérencieux et choquante à première vue mais très structuré avec de nombreux réseaux de signification lexicale dans chaque poème. Baudelaire tire des références de son jour (le Paris qui change, qui est dans un grand moment de changement et transition; c'est un époque où...more
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Les Fleurs du Mal (Paperback)
The Flowers of Evil (Paperback)
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The Flowers of Evil (Paperback)
Les Fleurs du Mal (Paperback)

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Charles Baudelaire was a 19th century 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 poèmes en prose (1868; "Little Prose Poems") was the most successful and innovative early ex...more
More about Charles Baudelaire...
Paris Spleen Poems Flowers of Evil and Other Works/Les Fleurs du Mal et Oeuvres Choisies : A Dual-Language Book (Dover Foreign Language Study Guides) On Wine and Hashish Baudelaire Rimbaud Verlaine: Selected Verse and Prose Poems

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“The Poet is a kinsman in the clouds
Who scoffs at archers, loves a stormy day;
But on the ground, among the hooting crowds,
He cannot walk, his wings are in the way.”
49 people liked it
“My love, do you recall the object which we saw,
That fair, sweet, summer morn!
At a turn in the path a foul carcass
On a gravel strewn bed,

Its legs raised in the air, like a lustful woman,
Burning and dripping with poisons,
Displayed in a shameless, nonchalant way
Its belly, swollen with gases.”
30 people liked it
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