Selected Letters of Charles Baudelaire: The Conquest of Solitude

by Charles Baudelaire, Rosemary Lloyd (Translation)

Undeniably one of the modern world's greatest literary figures, Charles Baudelaire (1821-67) left behind a correspondence documenting in intimate detail a life as intense in its extremes as his poetry. This extensive selection of his letters—many translated for the first time into English—depicts a poet divided between despair and elation, thoughts of suicide and intimations of immortality; a man who could write to his mother, "We're obviously destined to love one another, to end our lives as honestly and gently as possible," and say in the next sentence, "I'm convinced that one of us will kill the other"; who courted and then suffered the controversy provoked by his masterpiece, Les Fleurs du mal ; who struggled throughout his life with syphilis contracted in his youth, near-intolerable financial restrictions imposed by his stepfather, and conflicting feelings of failure and revolt dating from his school days.

Writing to family, friends, and lovers, Baudelaire reveals the incidents and passions that went into his poetry. In letters to editors, idols, and peers—Hugo, Flaubert, Vigny, Wagner, Cladel, among others—he elucidates the methods and concerns of his own art and criticism and comments tellingly on the arts and politics of his day. In all, ranging from childhood to days shortly before his death, these letters comprise a complex and moving portrait of the quintessential poet and his time.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography

300 pages, Hardcover

First published February 18, 1986

About the author

Public condemned Les fleurs du mal (1857), obscene only volume of French writer, translator, and critic Charles Pierre Baudelaire; expanded in 1861, it exerted an enormous influence over later symbolist and modernist poets.

Reputation of Charles Pierre Baudelaire rests primarily on perhaps the most important literary art collection, published in Europe in the 19th century. Similarly, his early experiment Petits poèmes en prose (1868) ( Little Prose Poems ) most succeeded and innovated of the time.

From financial disaster to prosecution for blasphemy, drama and strife filled life of known Baudelaire with highly controversial and often dark tales of Edgar Allan Poe. Long after his death, his name represents depravity and vice. He seemingly speaks directly to the 20th century civilization.

Reviews

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't want an honest, commonplace reputation. I want to crush people, astonish them, like Byron, Balzac, or Chateaubriand. Is there still time?

3.5 stars rounded up. the concluding quarter is likely deserving of five stars. The above letter is strangely to his mother. The subject of the letter like most of these collected letters is money. Poet as vocation requires a mercenary disposition, unless your family founded an investment bank. Baudelaire is petulant in his letters to his mother, the most represented recipient. He is likely at his best when writing to Flaubert or Sainte-Beuve. The letter to Wagner is exceptional. Just don't mention Baudelaire's time in Belgium. The letters become more resonant as the poet's health suffers, his use of opium and other narcotics provided a relief in terms of pain but appear to exacerbate his physical decline. I never felt that these letters were essential to an understanding of the artist or his work.

[Gina Hanson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel like she did a great job translating his letters. It seemed very authentic to the 19th century word usage.