... is impossible, at least so far as his rhymed verse goes.

Baudelaire's genius lay in his ability to combine the elegance of classical poetic forms with the darkest and most disturbing of "modern" imagery. A literal translation of his poems can convey the scandalousness of their content, but it cannot convey the pristine beauty of their verse settings. When this material is baldly stated in English, many of the images and ideas may seem vulgar, crass, or simply trite (and certainly not shocking to most modern readers). In French, the impression is totally different -- these poems can still shock and disturb because of the surgical precision with which Baudelaire wields words and verse forms in pursuit of the most debased (and exalted), corrupt, and messy of human impulses and emotions.

It is much easier to create elegant rhymes in French than in English. Baudelaire makes full use of the melodic (and dissonant) range of the French language. Attempting to produce rhyming translations of Baudelaire's verse is almost inevitably doomed to failure -- it would take an anglophone poet at least as great as Baudelaire to do this with even a modicum of success. I'm just a lousy poet with a pretty good grasp of French and a great desire to make Baudelaire more accessible to an English-language audience.

I make no claims about the elegance of my translations. They are raw and literal. While I have made occasional concessions in the interest of simple intelligibility, I have tried to convey as exactly as possibly what Baudelaire said. I cannot hope in any way to convey how he said it. To fully understand why Baudelaire is considered one of the greatest of modern poets, you've simply got to read him in French.

While most of these translations were originally done "cold," I have since compared many of them to Francis Scarfe's excellent but now-dated prose translations of a large portion of Les Fleurs du mal in Baudelaire: Selected Verse (Penguin Books, 1964). While my language and tone differ substantially from Scarfe's -- and while I disagree with him on certain readings -- his careful and very faithful translations have saved me from making many foolish errors.

Translating all of this material is a rather large undertaking. I am sure many errors have crept in, whether due to sloppiness, haste, or ignorance on my part. Any corrections and suggestions for revision will be greatly appreciated. Please contact me at cat@piranesia.edu -- I would love to hear from you!

COPYRIGHT NOTE: Baudelaire's works are all out of copyright. The English-language translations presented here may be freely used for all non-commercial purposes, so long as you give the translator due credit ("Translation by Cat Nilan © 1999").