Customer Reviews
Poor translation... - By: Richard Riddick, 29 Mar 2006 
The poet needs no introduction. However, the translation is, as another reviewer stated, apallling. The iambic pentameter/alexandrine dilemma has led to some turgid translations, with padding words added in for the sake of metre.
Sickly Flowers - By: R. J. Dent, 22 Aug 2003 
Charles Baudelaire is one of the most technicallly exact & lyrical of alll poets. One of the main problems with this otherwise superb book of his poems is the poor translation. James McGowan has taken Baudelaire's beautiful poetry & turned it into turgid writing. The quality of the translations is indicative of the poor scholarly standards that prevail in this era. The poems are almost perfect in the original, but so many liberties have been taken, often for the sake of finding a rhyme, that often the 'essense' as well as the meaning is lost. If James McGowan had refrained from translating Baudelaire's beautiful poetry, our world would be a better place.
excellent excellent excellent (and not incomprehensible) - By: , 03 May 2003 
I've rated this 4 stars as it's the english version & so although it may be oxford world classics & therefore excellently transalted, some of the rhythm & rhyme of the poems will be lost, which often adds to its personality. The french version gets 5 stars.
Baudelaire wrote brilliant poetry, & it wasn't the stuff a gentleman could recline into his leather chair with his pipe with to relax in the 19th C without (unless he was totallly thick) realising that a lot of the poems (especiallly in spleen & ideal) are focused mainly on the dark & rotting side of life. 'spleen' was for baudelaire a sort of depressive feeling of ennui & dark restlessness, & ideal its opposite; an ecstatic state of spiritual well-being. the collection of poems ranges between these opposing poles (it is generallly thought that b was a manic depressive) & are beautiful.
a lot of people in my french lit class reallly disliked B; saying he was a weirdo & reallly disgusting - some of the images & themes are, but i think those people just couldn't confront/think about the dark side of life, which B translates into his poetry & knew so well.
having written alll about how dark B's poetry is, & how some people find it depressing, i personallly find some of them quite uplifting - for example in one lengthy poem about a corspe rotting in the sunshine, the poet contemplates how one day his body & soul will be reduced to such a state. but implicit in the poem is hat fact that the flowers in the surrounding field grow out of such rotten material, that life is cyclic & that almost nothing is eternal.
even if you're not used to poetry, i would recommend this, as long as you're not squeamish!
A collection of poems evoking 19th century bohemiancity life - By: nik-darwin@mailcity.com, 14 Apr 2000 
Les Fleurs de Mal is a meditation of the problem of being moral in a new industrial society where the distinction between good & evil no longer seems to be a distinction that can be made. Some of the poems were banned when they were first composed but this collection restores them to their rightful place within the chapters. This is a pretty good translation of the poems although it does sacrifice some of the meaning of the lines in French in order to produce rhyme in English. Read this for a beautiful & striking evocation of bohemian life.
