Flowers of Evil

In Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil, Baudelaire writes poetry and short poetic prose about hookers, opium, ennui, and suffering. All great subjects. I personally did "You'd Entertain the Universe" as my recitation for this class.

My only way of looking at Baudelaire is with an analytic eye. Being a writer, I am quick to jump on any literary work and give it my two cents and in this case, Baudelaire gets the world-envious Tyler Norris Stamp of Approval.

I've never entertained the idea of reading Victorian or classical poetry (or writing in general, unless it's Wilde, who I think supersedes his time with a strikingly post modern perspective on the world. Post Victorian? I digress). Knowing the cannon of classical poetry, I was already prepared for "O"s, flowery diction and melodramatic themes. With all this included, Baudelaire is a pleasure to read. I enjoyed many of his poetic works.

"The Love of Illusion" was one of my personal favorites. In fact, I loved it so much I wrote on it for my midterm essay for Mauro. I held Baudelaire up to Becker and compared his poem's similarity to the description of the Freudian Romantic Solution, to great effect. I got a B+ on my essay!

I also enjoyed the one about the hooker- oh wait, that was all of them.

Anyway, Baudelaire gets a pass. I never prefer a classical style of writing but I think Baudelaire, for all intents and purposes keeps it interesting and fun to read.