From Library Journal
Though Charles Baudelaire published only a single volume of poetry, The Flowers of Evil, his use of symbolism and his poetic style were among the most influential of his generation; in fact, he is often considered the founder of modernist poetry. Although he wanted to earn his living as a poet, his biggest success in his lifetime was his translation of the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Stylistically, his poems were the antithesis of Romantic poetry and shocked the aestheticians of his time. His works were considered obscene, and legal proceedings were started against him. Using the poet's themes-childhood, women, reading, dreams, art, nature, the city, and death-the author provides readers with cultural, historical, and biographical contexts for all of Baudelaire's writings, including his criticism, theory, letters, and poetry. Drawing on her own translations as well as those of other poets, Lloyd (French, Indiana Univ., Bloomington; Mallarm‚: The Poet and His Circle) offers a lively discourse on the possibilities and limitations of translation. For academic libraries with large collections of poetry and poetic criticism.
Pam Kingsbury, Florence, AL Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Synopsis
Charles Baudelaire is often regarded as the founder of modernist poetry. "Baudelaire's World" provides English-language readers with the biographical, historical and cultural contexts that should lead to a fuller understanding and enjoyment of the great French poet's work. Rosemary Lloyd considers all of Baudelaire's writing, including his criticism, theory and letters, as well as poetry. In doing so, she sets the poems themselves in a richer context, in a landscape of real places populated with actual people. She shows how Baudelaire's poetry was marked by the influence of the writers and artists who preceded him or were his contemporaries. Lloyd builds an image of Baudelaire's world around major themes of his writing - childhood, women, reading, the city, dreams, art, nature and death. Throughout, she finds that his words and themes echo the historical and physical realities of life in mid-19th-century Paris. Lloyd also explores the possibilities and limitations of translation. As an integral part of her treatment of the life, poetry and letters of her subject, she also reflects on published translations of Baudelaire's work and offers some of her own translations.
