Charles Baudelaire |
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Charles Baudelaire Biography |
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was a nineteenth century French poet, critic and translator. A controversial figure in his lifetime, Baudelaire`s name has become a byword for literary and artistic decadence. At the same time his works, in particular his book of poetry Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), have been acknowledged as classics of French literature.
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BiographyFriends and FamilyTheophile Gautier [Friend] :: Honoré de Balzac [Friend]Trivia and QuotesQuotes Who among us has not, in moments of ambition, dreamt of the miracle of a form of poetic prose, musical but without rhythm and rhyme, both supple and staccato enough to adapt itself to the lyrical movements of our souls, the undulating movements of ou I am unable to understand how a man of honor could take a newspaper in his hands without a shudder of disgust. A frenzied passion for art is a canker that devours everything else. Always be a poet, even in prose. The world only goes round by misunderstanding. We are weighed down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of Time. And there are but two means of escaping and forgetting this nightmare: pleasure and work. Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose. A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors. Poetry and progress are like two ambitious men who hate one another with an instinctive hatred, and when they meet upon the same road, one of them has to give place. Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will, childhood equipped now with man`s physical means to express itself, and with the analytical mind that enables it to bring order into the sum of experience, involuntarily amassed. Any healthy man can go without food for two days - but not without poetry. I consider it useless and tedious to represent what exists, because nothing that exists satisfies me. Nature is ugly, and I prefer the monsters of my fancy to what is positively trivial. There exist only three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the soldier, the poet. To know, to kill, to create. It is necessary to work, if not from inclination, at least from despair. Everything considered, work is less boring than amusing oneself. It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree. For if, by ill luck, people understood each other, they would never agree. | ||
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