The Flowers of Evil
Charles Baudelaire and James Huneker
Read by LibriVox Volunteers
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Charles Baudelaire was a French poet whose work is described as combining an exoticism inherited from the Romantics with the Realism of other French writers of his time. The Flowers of Evil (Les Fleurs du mal) is a book of lyric poetry and his most famous work. In it he expresses the changing nature of beauty in the rapidly industrialising Paris caused by Haussmann's renovation of the city during the mid-19th century. He coined the term modernity to designate the fleeting experience of life in an urban metropolis, and the responsibility of artistic expression to capture that experience.
Les Fleurs du mal includes nearly all Baudelaire's poetry, written from 1840 until his death in August 1867. First published in 1857, it was important in the symbolist and modernist movements. Though it was extremely controversial upon publication, with six of its poems censored due to their immorality, it is now considered a major work of French poetry. The poems in Les Fleurs du mal frequently break with tradition, using suggestive images and unusual forms. They deal with themes relating to decadence and eroticism, particularly focusing on suffering and its relationship to original sin, disgust toward evil and oneself, obsession with death, and aspiration toward an ideal world. Les Fleurs du mal had a powerful influence on several notable French poets, including Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, and Stéphane Mallarmé.
These English translations by Frank Pearce Sturm (1879-1942) include a selection from the original French edition.
(Summary by Alan Mapstone and wikipedia) (1 hr 51 min)
Chapters
The Dance of Death | 5:29 | Read by Alan Mapstone |
The Beacons | 4:00 | Read by Alan Mapstone |
The Sadness of the Moon | 1:28 | Read by Alan Mapstone |
Exotic Perfume | 1:11 | Read by KevinS |
Beauty | 1:16 | Read by Stunning |
The Balcony | 2:53 | Read by Alan Mapstone |
The Sick Muse | 1:33 | Read by Alan Mapstone |
The Venal Muse | 1:30 | Read by Alan Mapstone |
The Evil Monk | 1:18 | Read by nighthawks |
The Temptation | 1:33 | Read by Bruce Kachuk |
The Irreparable | 2:16 | Read by Chris Pyle |
A Former Life | 1:08 | Read by fshort |
Don Juan in Hades | 2:03 | Read by Alan Mapstone |
The Living Flame | 1:20 | Read by Bruce Kachuk |
Correspondences | 1:16 | Read by Bruce Kachuk |
The Flask | 2:17 | Read by nighthawks |
Reversibility | 1:52 | Read by KevinS |
The Eyes of Beauty | 1:18 | Read by Larry Wilson |
Sonnet of Autumn | 1:31 | Read by Stunning |
The Remorse of the Dead | 1:14 | Read by Algy Pug |
The Ghost | 1:06 | Read by Stunning |
To a Madonna | 2:50 | Read by Meribau |
The Sky | 1:21 | Read by nighthawks |
Spleen | 1:33 | Read by Algy Pug |
The Owls | 1:09 | Read by Stunning |
Bien Loin D'Ici | 1:21 | Read by Stefan Von Blon |
Music | 0:54 | Read by Arah Craig |
Contemplation | 1:43 | Read by Stefan Von Blon |
To a Brown Beggar-maid | 3:28 | Read by Alan Mapstone |
The Swan | 4:16 | Read by Adrian Stephens |
The Seven Old Men | 4:17 | Read by Adrian Stephens |
The Little Old Women | 5:40 | Read by Adrian Stephens |
A Madrigal of Sorrow | 2:26 | Read by Adrian Stephens |
The Ideal | 1:09 | Read by Adrian Stephens |
Mist and Rain | 1:08 | Read by Agnes Robert Behr |
Sunset | 1:07 | Read by KevinS |
The Corpse | 2:43 | Read by KevinS |
An Allegory | 1:25 | Read by KevinS |
The Accursed | 2:38 | Read by nighthawks |
La Béatrice | 2:51 | Read by Alan Mapstone |
The Soul of Wine | 1:43 | Read by KevinS |
The Wine of Lovers | 0:58 | Read by CCam |
The Death of Lovers | 1:06 | Read by Agnes Robert Behr |
The Death of the Poor | 1:07 | Read by Agnes Robert Behr |
The Benediction | 6:38 | Read by Sheridan Alistair |
Gypsies Travelling | 1:17 | Read by nighthawks |
Robed in a Silken Robe | 1:28 | Read by Alan Mapstone |
A Landscape | 1:57 | Read by Gwen Dillard |
The Voyage | 12:13 | Read by Alan Mapstone |
Reviews
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Grace
too new to this sort genre of poetry to comment?