Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) [Mass Market Paperback]

Charles-Pierre Baudelaire (Author), Carol Clark (Editor, Translator, Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1996 | Series: Penguin Classics

In both his life and his poetry, Charles Pierre Baudelaire pushed the accepted limits of his time. His dissolute bohemian life was as shocking to his nineteenth-century readers as his poetry. Writing in classical style but with brutal honesty, Baudelaire laid bare human suffering, aspirations, and perversions.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: French, English
Introduction: English

About the Author

Charles-Pierre Baudelaire was born in Paris in 1821. His first publication was Le Salon de 1845, and he earned renown as an art critic and as a translator of Edgar Allan Poe. As a poet, his fame rests on Les Fleurs du mal. The collection was published in 1857, and certain poems were condemned as an offence against public morals; the book is now considered one of the masterpieces of nineteenth-century French literature. Baudelaire went to Brussels, where he hoped to earn money by lecturing; but his hopes foundered, his health gave way, and he was taken back to Paris, where he died in 1867.

Carol Clark is an emeritus fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. She has previously translated Baudelaire for Penguin Classics.

Carol Clark is an emeritus fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. She has previously translated Baudelaire for Penguin Classics.

Carol Clark is an emeritus fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. She has previously translated Baudelaire for Penguin Classics.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (May 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140446249
• ISBN-13: 978-0140446241
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #164,945 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful translation, December 27, 2008

By 

GG Gawain (St. Louis, MO USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

Unlike other translators, Carol Clark has really captured Baudelaire's intent in both the imagery and meaning because she didn't mix her own notion of poetry with his rhyming craft, and correctly settled on a prose translation; and therefore, as closely as possible, retained the true essence of Baudelaire in English format. For example:

Evening Harmony

"...The violin trembles like a wounded heart, a tender heart which hates the vast, black nothingness! The sky is sad and beautiful like a great alter of repose; the sun has drowned in his curdling blood.
A loving heart, which hates the vast, black nothingness, gathers up every trace of the shining past! The sun has drowned in his curdling blood...
Your memory within me shines like a monstrance."

This translation reveals Baudelaire's true heart. In many aspects his visions are like Poe's but his ideals focus on hard-bitten romantic love. In many translations, he comes off like a whiny bad boy because the constraints the translator placed on himself to hold poetic form higher than meaning. In this one, Baudelaire's true genius is allowed to shine.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent English Translation!, October 19, 2004

By 

Scott M. "Skeeter" (Indianapolis, IN USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

This version of selected works is one of the best French to English translations of Baudelaire I've come across. The text is not manipulated to rhyme in English as it does in French, and therefore is much more representative (in meaning) of the work in it's native language. I'm not much of a poetry reader, but next to Leaves of Grass by Whitman, this (the selections from "The Flowers of Evil" in particular) is my favorite.

0 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very few other french works matter compared to this,, January 9, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Selected Poems (Penguin Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

The flowers of evil is simply the single greatest book in all of french literature.Read it & agree.