Baudelaire the damned: a biography

Description

In this penetrating, immensely readable biography of the brilliant poet, translator, and art critic, F. W. J. Hemmings gives us a fascinating new perspective on Baudelaire's extraordinary, complex personality, his artistic achievements, and his tormented life. Hemmings, the noted biographer of Zola and Alexandre Dumas, has drawn on a great volume of material for this work, much of which came to light as late at the 70s. He shows how Baudelaire's unhappy childhood and the mixture of strong affection and bitter resentment in his feelings for his mother provide the key to his contradictory and self-destructive behavior, particularly in his neurotic relationships with women. Burdened with a sense of guilt and acutely conscious of his shortcomings, Baudelaire was constantly at odds with himself, with those around him, and with the optimistic, materialistic society of his day, which he hated. From the poverty, disease, and despair that plagued him sprang Les Fleurs du Mal, the...