Oxford World's Classics: The Prose Poems and La Fanfarlo - Tapa blanda

Although best known for his collection of poetry, Les Fleurs du Mal, Baudelaire was also a gifted and inventive prose writer. In combining certain of the restrictions of poetic form with the freedom of prose, he sought a form of language capable of conveying the complexity, cacophony, and unexpected juxtapositions of city life. Like his verse, the prose poems are rich in psychological insights and reveal the ability both to select precisely those tiny details that raise the banal to the ironic and to create verbal patterns and rhythms that subtly underpin or throw into question the surface meaning of the language. This collection of all Baudelaire's prose poetry also includes the novella La Fanfarlo, a gently mocking study of love and passion that brilliantly evokes the art of dance.

This edition contains new translations by Rosemary Lloyd of an early novella by Baudelaire and all his prose poetry. The novella, "La Fanfarlo" is a mocking study of love and passion and an evocation of the art of dance. There are 50 prose poems.