Charles Baudelaire wrote of The Flowers of Evil: “There are in every man at all times two simultaneous impulses: one toward God, the other toward Satan.” Its principal themes of sex and death, created a public scandal. The work was banned for verses then considered obscene and “an insult to public decency.” Six of the poems remained banned until 1949 and shocked the literary world with their outspoken portrayal of lesbian love, linking of sexuality and death, their unremitting irony, and unflinching celebration of the seamy side of urban life.

Today, The Flowers of Evil and Baudelaire are held in great regard. T.S. Eliot considered The Flowers of Evil not only the creation of modernism but also its crowning achievement; he called it “the greatest example of modern poetry in any language.”

CHARLES BAUDELAIRE (1821-1867) was a French poet, art critic and philosopher. He is considered one of the most important innovators, Arthur Rimbaud having called him, “the king of poets, a true God”.