Paris Spleen: Little Poems in Prose
Between 1855 and his death in 1867, Charles Baudelaire inaugurated a new--and in his own words "dangerous"--hybrid form in a series of prose poems known as Paris Spleen. Important and provocative, these fifty poems take the reader on a tour of 1850s Paris, through gleaming cafes and filthy side streets, revealing a metropolis on the eve of great change. In its deliberate fragmentation and merging of the lyrical with the sardonic, Le Spleen de Paris may be regarded as one of the earliest and...
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A modernist classic translated for the twenty-first century
Translator's Introduction Dedication: for Arsene Houssaye The Stranger An Old Woman's Despair The Artist's Confiteor A Joker Double Bedroom To Each His Chimaera The Fool and Venus Dog and Flask The Bad Glazier One A.M.Wild Woman and Little Darling The Crowd Widows The Old Showman Cake The Clock A Hemisphere in a Head of Hair Invitation to the Voyage A Toy for the Poor Fairy Gifts Temptations or Eros, Plutus and Glory Evening Twilight Solitude Planning Dorothea the Beautiful The Eyes of the Poor An Heroic Death The False Coin Generous Gambler The Rope Callings The Thyrsus Be Drunk Already!Windows The Urge to Paint Moon Favors Which Is the True?A Thoroughbred The Mirror The Port Mistresses Portrayed The Gallant Marksman Soup and Clouds Shooting-Gallery and Cemetery Lost Halo Mademoiselle Bistoury Anywhere Out of the World Knock Down the Poor!Good Dogs
\ From the Publisher"Keith Waldrop's task as translator is challenging. ... He is capable of compression, successfully handling the text's moments of laconic satire (the wealthy drinking from 'glasses larger than their thirst').... Above all, he keeps faith with Baudelaire's overarching aim: to accommodate things, and people, out of place, in a language equally alienated."--Ben Morgan, Times Literary Supplement \ "This is Baudelaire at the limit, having uncovered a new feeling that does indeed appear as a moral history, the private life in the public turn." --Joshua Clover, The Nation\ "Baudelaire considered prose poetry a miracle genre. ... The present translation of Baudelaire's seminal work offers many advantages. ... (Waldrop) writes in clear, powerful English. And above all, he makes the right choices, those one would expect from an award-winning poet and seasoned translator.... Waldrop conveys the lyricism and satire of the original. His English mirrors the musicality of French. ... Essential."--C.B. Kerr, Choice\ \ \
