The Flowers of Evil

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford 0X2 6DP

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide in

Oxford New York

Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogotá Buenos Aires Calcutta
Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul
Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai
Nairobi Paris São Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw

with associated companies in Berlin Ibadan

Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press
in the UK and in certain other countries

Published in the United States
by Oxford University Press Inc., New York

Translation and Notes © James McGowan 1993

Introduction, Note on the Text, Select Bibliography, and Chronology
© Jonathan Culler 1993

Database right Oxford University Press (maker)

First published as a World’s Classics paperback 1993
Reissued as an Oxford World’s Classics paperback 1998

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organizations. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above

You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Data available

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Baudelaire, Charles, 1821–1867.
[Fleurs du mal. English]
The flowers of evil/Charles Baudelaire; translated by James McGowan;
with an introduction by Jonathan Culler,

p. cm.—(Oxford world’s classics)

I. McGowan, James. II. Title. III. Series.

PQ2191.F6E5 1993 841’.8–dc20 92–28008

ISBN 0–19–283545–9

3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4

Printed in Great Britain by
Cox & Wyman Ltd.
Reading, Berkshire

OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS

For almost 100 years Oxford World’s Classics have brought readers closer to the world’s great literature. Now with over 700 titles — from the 4,000-year-old myths of Mesopotamia to the twentieth century’s greatest novels — the series makes available lesser-known as well as celebrated writing.

The pocket-sized hardbacks of the early years contained introductions by Virginia Woolf T. S. Eliot, Graham Greene, and other literary figures which enriched the experience of reading. Today the series is recognized for its fine scholarship and reliability in texts that span world literature, drama and poetry, religion, philosophy, and politics. Each edition includes perceptive commentary and essential background information to meet the changing needs of readers.

Refer to the Table of Contents to navigate through the material in this Oxford World’s Classics ebook. Use the asterisks (*) throughout the text to access the hyperlinked Explanatory Notes.

OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE

The Flowers of Evil

Translated with Notes by
JAMES McGOWAN

With an Introduction by
JONATHAN CULLER

OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS

THE FLOWERS OF EVIL

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE was born in Paris in 1821. His father died when Baudelaire was 5 and his mother’s remarriage in 1828 had a traumatic effect on him. In 1841 his stepfather sent him on a voyage that was meant to take him to Calcutta, but the homesick and rebellious Baudelaire insisted on leaving the ship after visiting Réunion and Mauritius and returned to France. In the following year he inherited 100,000 francs, which he proceeded to spend with such speed that his family appointed a lawyer to manage his fortune. Constantly in debt, Baudelaire led a life increasingly marked by poverty, disorder, and illness, though he remained something of a dandy, known to his friends for his elegance of taste, dress, and expression. He was an active, discerning critic of contemporary painting and an enthusiastic translator and promoter of the work of Edgar Allan Poe. His major work, The Flowers of Evil, published in 1857, was prosecuted for outrage to public decency. Ordered by the court to suppress six of the poems, Baudelaire revised and enlarged the collection and republished it in 1861. Meanwhile, he wrote a number of ironic and allegorical prose poems, collected after his death as Paris Spleen or Short Poems in Prose. In 1864 he went to lecture in Belgium in the vain hope of earning money and establishing his fame. In 1866 he suffered a series of strokes, leading to paralysis and aphasia, and was brought back to Paris, where he died in 1867. In addition to The Flowers of Evil and the prose poems, his works include studies of intoxicants and numerous essays on painting, caricature, and contemporary literature.

JAMES MCGOWAN is Professor of English, Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, Illinois. His published works include a collection of poems, Each Other—Where We Are (1978, 1980), and 66 Translations from Charles Baudelaire’s ‘Les Fleurs Du Mal’ (1985). He also co-edited Benchmark: An Anthology of Illinois Poetry (1988).

JONATHAN CULLER is the author of numerous studies of French literature and literary theory, including Flaubert: The Uses of Uncertainty (1974), Structuralist Poetics (1975), On Deconstruction (1982), Framing the Sign (1988), and Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (1997). Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, he is completing a study of Baudelaire, entitled The Devil’s Part: Baudelaire’s Poetry.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Note on the Text

Select Bibliography

A Chronology of Charles Baudelaire

Translator’s Preface

THE FLOWERS OF EVIL

To the Reader

SPLEEN AND THE IDEAL

1.