The Flowers of Evil (Wesleyan Poetry) - Hardcover

Baudelaire, Charles

4.2

71,181 ratings by Goodreads

9780819567994: The Flowers of Evil (Wesleyan Poetry)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 081956799X ISBN 13: 9780819567994

Publisher: Wesleyan University Press, 2006

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The poetic masterpiece of the great nineteenth-century writer Charles Baudelaire, "The Flowers of Evil" is one of the most frequently read and studied works in the French language. In this compelling new translation of Baudelaire's most famous collection, Keith Waldrop recasts the poet's original French alexandrines and other poetic arrangements into versets, a form that hovers between poetry and prose. Maintaining Baudelaire's complex view of sound and structure, Waldrop's translation mirrors the intricacy of the original without attempting to replicate its inimitable verse. The result is a powerful new re-imagining, one that is, almost paradoxically, closer to Baudelaire's own poetry than any previous English translation. Including the six poems banned from the first edition, this "Flowers of Evil" preserves the complexity, eloquence, and dark humor of its author. Brought here to new life, it is hypnotic, frank, and forceful.

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Review:

"Thus the delight and curiosity of Keith Waldrop's new translation. It's close to plain prose: 'versets, ' he calls them, paragraphs divided where Baudelaire's stanza's break. It's by no means the first prose translation, but it's the most charming: I don't recall another version, verse or prose, that slips so easily into the comradely 'we.'"--New York Times Book Review The task of the translator...is to reconcile the strengths of the poet with his new surroundings, setting him in flight with wings that do not impede his walk. In part from the landing on versets, but more particularly from his deftness in English and the depth of his understanding of Baudelaire, Keith Waldrop has created a Flowers of Evil that, one gesture, can come to terms with the new needs of poetry readers in English and the foreignness of the language of Les Fleurs du mal."--Rain Taxi "Waldrop's translations soar...perhaps getting closer to Baudelaire's rich tone than any other English translation."--Chicago Review

About the Author:

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) wrote some of the most innovative poetry of the nineteenth century, in books including Les Fleurs du Mal and Le spleen de Paris. Keith Waldrop is author of numerous collections of poetry and is the translator of The Selected Poems of Edmond Jabes, as well as works by Claude Royet-Journoud, Anne-Marie Albiach, and Jean Grosjean. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

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