Historical Figures Codexery

Charles Baudelaire

French poet who coined modernity and wrote Les Fleurs du mal.

His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal, expresses the changing nature of beauty in rapidly industrialising Paris.[1] The fleeting experience of urban life was labeled modernity (modernité) by Baudelaire, who argued that art must capture that transitory moment.[1]

Quick Facts

Birth name
Charles-Pierre Baudelaire
Born
9 April 1821
Birthplace
Paris, France
Died
31 August 1867
Occupation
  • Poet
  • art critic
  • philosopher
Education
Lycée Louis-le-Grand
Movement
Decadent

Facts from the source article.

Life and work

Baudelaire was baptized at Saint-Sulpice Catholic church two months after his birth.[2] Baudelaire was educated in Lyon, where he boarded, and later attended the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris studying law.[3][4] After gaining his degree in 1839, he told his brother "I don't feel I have a vocation for anything" and decided on a literary career.[5] His stepfather sent him on a voyage to Calcutta in 1841 hoping to end his dissolute habits.[6]

His first published work was his art review "Salon of 1845" under the pseudonym Baudelaire Dufaÿs.[7] He published Les Fleurs du mal in 1857, and he, his publisher and printer were successfully prosecuted for creating an offense against public morals.[8][9] Joseph-François Baudelaire, the poet's father, worked as a senior civil servant and painted as an amateur; he was 34 years older than Caroline, Baudelaire's mother.[2] Images of the sea and exotic harbors from the journey later appeared in Baudelaire's poems.[6]

Upon turning 21, Baudelaire inherited a large sum of money, but within a few years most of it was wasted.[10] In 1866 a severe stroke left Baudelaire paralyzed; he died on 31 August 1867, having been unable to speak for over a year.[11]

What the cited sources add

Penguin published "Charles Baudelaire" in 1995, a work of 229 pages.[12]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Charles Baudelaire" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "By modernity I mean the transitory, the fugitive, the contingent which make up one half of art, the other being the eternal and the immutable." Charles Baudela; "If we had to nominate a first modernist, Baudelaire would surely be the man." Marshall Berman, "Everything That Is Solid Melts Into Air". (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Charles Baudelaire" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Charles Baudelaire, Richard Howard. Les Fleurs Du Mal. David R. Godine Publisher, 1983, p. xxv. .; Ziegler, "F. Baudelaire (1759–1827) Peintre et Amateur D'art", Gazette des Beaux-Arts, March 1979, p. 109–134; Boquel, "Une histoire des parents d'écrivains : De Balzac à Marguerite Duras", Editions Flammarion, 2010, p. 274 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Charles Baudelaire" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Richardson 1994, p. 35. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Charles Baudelaire" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hilton 2004, p. 60. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Charles Baudelaire" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Richardson 1994, p. 70. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Charles Baudelaire" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Richardson 1994, pp. 67–68.; "Charles Baudelaire", Britannica (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Charles Baudelaire" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Vicaire, "Manual de L'Amateur de Livres du XIXe Siècle: 1801–1893", Librairie A. Rouquette, 1894, p. 339 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Charles Baudelaire" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Clark, "Selected Poems", Penguin Books Ltd., 1995, p. xxiii; Chisholm 1911, p. 537; Baudelaire, Charles. Les Fleurs du mal. Paris: Revue des Deux Mondes (XXVe année, seconde série de la nouvelle période, tome dixième), 1855. pp. 1079–1093.; Huneker, James. Introductory preface to: The Poems and Prose Poems of Charles Baudelaire. New York: Brentano's, 1919. p. xvii. (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Charles Baudelaire" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Richardson 1994, p. 248 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Charles Baudelaire" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Richardson 1994, p. 71. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  11. Wikipedia, "Charles Baudelaire" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Baudelaire: Une Micro-Histoire" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  12. Open Library record, ISBN 9780140446241 ("Charles Baudelaire"). CC0 (metadata); book content not read. openlibrary.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Charles Baudelaire (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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