Customer Reviews

Selected Poems

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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.

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.

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