Customer Reviews

Baudelaire in English (Poets in Translation, Penguin)

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This is the book that introduced me to Penguin's wonderful Poets in Translation series. I've been hooked ever since. With brief introductions placing the translator in proper context, the anthology moves through all Baudelaire's major poems, dwelling with multiple translations and comparisons to the original on a few key favorites.

If you can't read French (and believe me I can't), this is the next best thing. By seeing Baudie from multiple perspectives, translated over several generations, you really get a better sense of his poems than any one translator could give you. On top of that, the editors do a great job of giving minimal-but-effective background material.

Should you choose to explore further, you are armed with knowledge of how each translator approached his or her task. This is invaluable. It lead me, for example, to F.P. Sturm's translations, which I never otherwise would have known about. Excellent! 5/5 stars.

Baudelaire in English, still romantic and a dream of inspirations for all whose hearts are fain to the virtues of Meaning chiefly when it can be felt in real words which flowed out a romantic heart and into posterity. In life the poor fellow was always plagued by just ordinary but rather too often "bad luck" however he could write his heart out like no other... And that is why I have always loved Baudelaire... I recommend his works in any language, in any age or time! A bit of Baudelaire can always balance our ways of seeing our own world and allow us the wings of his inspiration.

Prof Carol Clark and Prof Robert Sykes in their 40-page introduction put the English translation of Baudelaire in a cultural perspective. Excellent example of translation studies.