Charles Baudelaire

Lore & Background

Baudelaire was born in Paris on 9 April 1821. His father, a senior civil servant and amateur artist, died when Baudelaire was a child. His mother then married Lieutenant Colonel Jacques Aupick, a move that biographers often saw as a crucial trauma in Baudelaire's life. He was educated in Lyon and later at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, studying law, but he felt no vocation for it. His stepfather sent him on a voyage to Calcutta in 1841 to curb his dissolute habits; though he did not reach India, the trip provided impressions of the sea and exotic ports that later appeared in his poetry. Upon returning to Paris, he began composing poems for Les Fleurs du mal. He received a sizable inheritance at age 21 but squandered much of it, leading his family to place his property in trust. He became known as a dandy and free-spender, and his mistress Jeanne Duval was rejected by his family. He took part in the Revolutions of 1848 and wrote for a revolutionary newspaper, though his interest in politics was passing.

Reader's Guide

Baudelaire's significance lies in his role as a pioneer of modernist sensibility. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal (1857), was prosecuted for offending public morals, yet it was praised by fellow artists such as Gustave Flaubert and Théodore de Banville. The poems explore themes of sex, death, melancholy, and the corruption of the city, using imagery of smell and fragrance to evoke nostalgia. Baudelaire coined the term modernity to capture the fleeting, ephemeral experience of urban life, and he argued that art must express that experience. His original style of prose-poetry influenced later poets including Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, and Stéphane Mallarmé. Marshall Berman credited Baudelaire as the first Modernist. Baudelaire also worked as an art critic, championing Delacroix and offering opinions that anticipated Impressionist theories. His legacy endures as a central figure in the transition from Romanticism to modernism, and his work continues to be studied for its formal mastery and its unflinching engagement with the realities of modern life.

Did You Know?

• Baudelaire coined the term modernity (modernité) to describe the fleeting experience of life in an urban metropolis.
• His stepfather sent him on a voyage to Calcutta in 1841, but he stopped on Mauritius and Réunion and returned to Paris after a few weeks.
• He was successfully prosecuted along with his publisher and printer for creating an offense against public morals over Les Fleurs du mal.
• Baudelaire translated stories by Edgar Allan Poe.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"Charles Baudelaire (9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet, critic and translator." — Charles Baudelaire "Tout ce qui plaît a une raison de plaire, et mépriser les attroupements de ceux qui s'égarent n'est pas le moyen de les ramener où ils devraient être." — Charles Baudelaire "Everything that gives pleasure has its reason. To scorn the mobs of those who go astray is not the means to bring them around." — Charles Baudelaire "Toutes les beautés contiennent, comme tous les phénomènes possibles, quelque chose d'éternel et quelque chose de transitoire — d'absolu et de particulier." — Charles Baudelaire