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Title details for The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire - Wait list

The Flowers of Evil

by Charles Baudelaire
Stuart Walker
Audiobook
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Les Fleurs du mal, in English 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 poems deal with themes relating to decadence and eroticism. Baudelaire dedicated the book to the poet Théophile Gautier, describing him as a parfait magicien des lettres françaises ("a perfect magician of French letters"). The author and the publisher were prosecuted under the regime of the Second Empire as an outrage aux bonnes mœurs ("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"; " Les "Métamorphoses du Vampire" (or "The Vampire's Metamorphoses"), for example. These were later published in Brussels in a small volume entitled Les Épaves (Scraps or Jetsam). 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. Those poems, The Flowers of Evil, are a masterpiece of French literature.

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Publisher: Astorg Audio Edition: Unabridged

OverDrive Listen audiobook

  • File size: 9404 KB
  • Release date: February 2, 2016
  • Duration: 00:19:35

MP3 audiobook

  • File size: 9461 KB
  • Release date: February 2, 2016
  • Duration: 00:19:35
  • Number of parts: 1
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
MP3 audiobook

subjects

Classic Literature Fiction Poetry

Languages

English

Levels

Lexile® Measure:1330
Text Difficulty:10-12

Les Fleurs du mal, in English 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 poems deal with themes relating to decadence and eroticism. Baudelaire dedicated the book to the poet Théophile Gautier, describing him as a parfait magicien des lettres françaises ("a perfect magician of French letters"). The author and the publisher were prosecuted under the regime of the Second Empire as an outrage aux bonnes mœurs ("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"; " Les "Métamorphoses du Vampire" (or "The Vampire's Metamorphoses"), for example. These were later published in Brussels in a small volume entitled Les Épaves (Scraps or Jetsam). 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. Those poems, The Flowers of Evil, are a masterpiece of French literature.

Expand title description text
Classic Literature Fiction Poetry