He admired the work of Edgar Allan Poe and Baudelaire’s early writing included translating Poe’s stories into French. Some of Poe’s macabre themes appear in Baudelaire’s later writing, like his best-known work, Les fleur de mal or Flowers of Evil. But Baudelaire’s work also gave readers eroticism, decadence, and moral depravity, which led to the censorship of some of his writing. He saw – and captured – the changes in Paris as it transitioned to an industrial city during his lifetime. And Baudelaire’s writing on loss, specifically loss of beauty, resonated with readers around the world – and it still does.
A colorized photo of Charles Baudelaire (undated) Image credit: Apic/Getty Images Source: The Guardian Here's how The Guardian described him: Drug-addicted, syphilitic, always in debt despite inheriting a fortune, writing about prostitutes, hanging out in Paris’s demi-monde, forced by judges to suppress some of his poems – Baudelaire set the bar high for future artists of all types keen to be “maudit” (cursed) outsiders, too.
“Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recaptured at will.”
-French writer Charles Baudelaire, born on this day in 1821
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