Baudelaire, Charles Pierre 1821-67
French Symbolist poet

Born in Paris, he had an unhappy childhood quarrelling with his stepfather, and was sent on a voyage to India. He stopped off at Mauritius, where Jeanne Duval became his mistress and inspiration. On his return to Paris in 1843 he spent much of his time in the studios of Eug�ne Delacroix and Honor� Daumier, and wrote art criticisms in Le Salon de 1845 and Le Salon de 1846. In 1847 he published an auto-biographical novel, La Fanfarlo. His major work is an influential collection of poems, Les Fleurs du mal (1857, Eng trans Flowers of Evil, 1909), for which author, printer and publisher were prosecuted for impropriety in 1864. Later works include Les Paradis artificiels (1860, 'Artificial Paradises') and Petits Po�mes en prose (1869, 'Little Poems in Prose'). He translated (1856-65) the works of Thomas De Quincey and Edgar Allan Poe. Having written a critical work on his literary associates Honor� de Balzac, Th�ophile Gautier and G�rard de Nerval, published posthumously in 1880, he took to drink and opium, became paralysed, and died in poverty.

Bibliography: E Starkie, Baudelaire (1957); H Peyre, Connaissance de Baudelaire (1951)