Baudelaire: Les Fleurs du mal (Landmarks of World Literature) - Tapa dura

"...F.W. Leakey's concise volume serves as an excellent guide to Baudelaire's poetry and life. Leakey's lifelong study of Baudelaire's works is apparent on every page, an artful blend of essential information and critical insight. ... What distinguishes this volume overall is the ease with which Leakey ties Baudelaire's work to the broad tradition of French lyric verse, and simultaneously sets it apart, highlighting Baudelaire's originality and modernity." French Review

Les Fleurs du mal, once the most infamous book of poems in French literature, became in the twentieth century the most famous, and the most admired: its challenge to convention when it was first published in 1857 led to its judicial condemnation, but it owes its 'landmark' status to the sheer aesthetic quality of its verses. In this volume, Professor Leakey provides a newly comprehensive guide to the understanding and appreciation of Les Fleurs du mal, offering fresh insights into its composition, themes and style (sound as well as sense), and setting it in its historical context. A whole chapter is devoted to Baudelaire's crowning poetic achievement, Le Cygne, and the book includes a detailed index to individual poems as well as a guide to further reading.