The Flowers of Evil (Annotated)
Enriched Edition. Dark French Symbolist Verse of Beauty, Corruption, Urban Spleen, and Spiritual LongingBy Charles Baudelaire
Length2h 32m
About this audiobook
Charles Baudelaire's The Flowers of Evil is a landmark of modern lyric poetry, a deliberately unsettling sequence that transforms sin, decay, erotic longing, urban spleen, and spiritual aspiration into works of severe formal beauty. Written largely in classical meters and rhymed structures, its poems wrench the inherited language of Romanticism toward Symbolism and modernism, discovering correspondences between perfume, music, color, and moral experience. Its scandal lies not merely in its subjects, but in its insistence that beauty may bloom from corruption. Baudelaire, born in Paris in 1821, lived at the center of nineteenth-century French literary and artistic upheaval. A critic, translator of Edgar Allan Poe, dandy, and observer of metropolitan life, he was shaped by debt, illness, colonial travel, Catholic guilt, and the shocks of modern Paris. These pressures informed his fascination with divided consciousness: flesh and spirit, disgust and rapture, boredom and transcendence. This book is indispensable for readers interested in the origins of modern poetry and the psychology of modernity. It rewards slow reading, offering not comfort but lucidity: a dark, musical education in desire, suffering, and the ambiguous splendor of human imagination.
This enriched edition has been carefully crafted to add value to your reading experience.
- A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes.
- The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists.
- A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing.
- An Author Biography reveals milestones in the author's life, illuminating the personal insights behind the text.
- A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings.
- Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life.
- Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance.
Audiobook details
GenrePoetry
Length2 hrs 32 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateAug 20, 2013
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1The Flowers of Evil (Annotated)
26All Entire
2Introduction
27Sonnet xliii
3Author Biography
28The Living Torch
4Historical Context
29The Spiritual Dawn
5Synopsis (Selection)
30Evening Harmony
Show all chaptersShow less
6Benediction
31Overcast Sky
7Echoes
32Invitation to a Journey
8The Sick Muse
33“Causerie”
9The Venal Muse
34Autumn Song
10The Evil Monk
35Sisina
11The Enemy
36To a Creolean Lady
12Ill Luck
37Moesta et Errabunda
13Interior Life
38The Ghost
14Man and the Sea
39Autumn Song
15Beauty
40Sadness of the Moon–Goddess
16The Ideal
41Cats
17The Giantess
42Owls
18Hymn to Beauty
43Music
19Exotic Perfume
44The Joyous Defunct
20La Chevelure
45The Broken Bell
21Sonnet xxviii
46Spleen
22Posthumous Remorse
47Obsession
23The Balcony
48Magnetic Horror
24The Possessed One
49The Lid
25Semper Eadem
50Bertha’s Eyes
Die Blumen des Bösen - Zweisprachige Ausgabe (Deutsch-Französisch) / Les fleurs du mal - Edition bilingue (français-allemand) (Kommentiert)Charles Baudelaire7h 32m$2.50 · $0.00
Las Flores del Mal (Anotado)Charles Baudelaire4h 49m$1.99 · $0.00
Tableaux parisiens / Zweisprachige Ausgabe (Deutsch-Französisch) (Kommentiert)Charles Baudelaire4h 2m4.4 (69)$1 · $0.00
The Generous Gambler (A short but grand prose poem) (Annotated)Charles Baudelaire1h 46m$2 · $0.00
Las flores del mal (Anotado)Charles Baudelaire4h 47m4.5 (141)$1.99 · $0.00
The Greatest Works of French Literature: 100+ Novels, Short Stories, Poetry Collections & Plays (Annotated)Charles Baudelaire, George Sand, Anatole France, Molière, Voltaire, Stendhal, Alexandre Dumas, Alexandre Dumas fils, Émile Zola, Jules Verne, Victor Hugo, Marcel Proust, Guy de Maupassant, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jean Racine, François Rabelais, Gustave Flaubert, Gaston Leroux, Pierre Corneille, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos1418h 1m4.4 (10)$2 · $0.00
Las Flores del Mal (Anotado)Charles Baudelaire4h 43m4.4 (84.7K)$1.99 · $0.00
Gesammelte Werke: Die Blumen des Bösen + Die künstlichen Paradiese + Die Fanfarlo + Tableaux parisiens (Kommentiert)Charles Baudelaire8h 52m4.3 (11)$2 · $0.00
Charles Baudelaire: Les Fleurs du MalCharles Baudelaire6h 5m4.3 (110.8K)$1 · $0.00
The Three Hills, and Other PoemsCharles Baudelaire, Sir John Collings Squire1h 5m$2 · $0.00
Die Blumen des Bösen - Zweisprachige Ausgabe (Deutsch-Französisch) / Les fleurs du mal - Edition bilingue (français-allemand)Charles Baudelaire6h 5m4.4 (1.8K)$1 · $0.00
The Flowers of EvilCharles Baudelaire2h 12m4.3 (95.8K)$1 · $0.00
Die Blumen des Bösen (Kommentiert)Charles Baudelaire5h 4m$1 · $0.00
Las Flores del MalCharles Baudelaire3h 28m4.4 (235.5K)$2 · $0.00
Tableaux parisiens / Zweisprachige Ausgabe (Deutsch-Französisch)Charles Baudelaire3h 42m4.5 (41)$1 · $0.00
Die Blumen des Bösen (Zweisprachige Ausgabe (Deutsch-Französisch)Charles Baudelaire7h 17m4.3 (86.1K)$1 · $0.00
The Three Hills, and Other PoemsCharles Baudelaire, John Collings Sir Squire1h 3m$2 · $0.00
Les épaves de Charles BaudelaireCharles Baudelaire2h 3m3.8 (20)$2 · $0.00
Die künstlichen ParadieseCharles Baudelaire2h 18m4.0 (3.3K)$1 · $0.00
The Complete Poetry (Annotated)Oscar Wilde6h 44m4.5 (15.5K)$2 · $0.00
Saundarya LahariUnknown Author3h 16m4.6 (256)$18 · $0.00
The Mesnevi (Annotated)Maulana Jalal al-Din Rumi18h 41m4.5 (4.2K)$2 · $0.00
Songs of a SourdoughRobert W. Service2h 13m4.5 (13.6K)$1 · $0.00
Little Flower of Jesus (Annotated)Thérèse of Lisieux5h 4m4.5 (1.4K)$1.99 · $0.00
The Poems of LeopardiGiacomo Leopardi3h 9m4.5 (3.6K)$2 · $0.00
Nikki Giovanni: Love Poems & A Good CryNikki Giovanni2h 44m4.6 (405)$18 · $0.00
The Complete Poetry of Walt Whitman (Annotated)Walt Whitman19h 58m4.5 (4.2K)$1.99 · $0.00
A Year with RumiColeman Barks5h 56m4.5 (2.6K)$24 · $0.00
Complete Poetry of Rudyard Kipling (Annotated)Rudyard Kipling22h 50m4.5 (2.6K)$3.99 · $0.00
The Odes of John Keats - Complete CollectionJohn Keats22h 16m4.5 (1.3K)$1 · $0.00
PoemsEdna St. Vincent Millay2h 39m4.5 (1.3K)$2 · $0.00
PoemsW. B. Yeats5h 6m4.4 (46.9K)$1 · $0.00
Metamorphoses (Annotated)Ovid28h 37m4.3 (80.8K)$2 · $0.00
THE FLOWERS OF EVILCharles Baudelaire2h 24m4.3 (94.6K)$1 · $0.00
A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old SoulGeorge MacDonald2h 9m4.4 (839)$2 · $0.00
Paradise Lost + Paradise Regained (2 Unabridged Classics + Original Illustrations by Gustave Doré) (Annotated)John Milton11h 56m4.4 (2.2K)$3 · $0.00
PORPHYRIA'S LOVERRobert Browning7h 42m4.3 (3K)$1 · $0.00
The Ballad of the White HorseG. K. Chesterton2h 47m4.3 (2.9K)$1 · $0.00
The Rubaiyat of Omar KhayyamOmar Khayyam2h 28m4.3 (136.3K)$1 · $0.00
You may also like
Les Fleurs du MalCharles Baudelaire2h 59m4.3 (88K)$3.50 · $0.00
Auguste RodinRainer Maria Rilke3h 26m4.2 (922)$16 · $0.00
The Flowers of EvilCharles Baudelaire2h 12m4.3 (95.8K)$1 · $0.00
Poems of Emily Dickinson – Series 2Emily Dickinson1h 58m4.3 (3.6K)$15
The Book of TeaOkakura Kakuzo1h 59m4.3 (42.6K)$1.20 · $0.00
Auguste RodinRainer Maria Rilke1h 40m4.2 (1K)$2 · $0.00
PoemsJohn Clare2h 11m4.2 (2.2K)$1 · $0.00
Auguste RodinRainer María Rilke3h 14m4.2 (973)$13 · $0.00
On Being Ill (Annotated)Virginia Woolf2h 14m4.1 (3.6K)$3 · $0.00
Poems: Series TwoEmily Dickinson1h 38m4.4 (1.8K)$2 · $0.00
All Things are PossibleLev Shestov5h 38m4.1 (323)$1 · $0.00
Reading Like a WriterFrancine Prose9h 2m3.8 (12.4K)$29 · $0.00
Tragic Sense of LifeMiguel Unamuno12h 58m4.2 (4.1K)$2.30
THE FLOWERS OF EVILCharles Baudelaire2h 24m4.3 (94.6K)$1 · $0.00
The Love Song of J. Alfred PrufrockT.S. Eliot9m4.5 (112.2K)$1 · $0.00
A Room of One’s OwnVirginia Woolf3h 56m4.3 (334.5K)$3.50 · $0.00
Pablo PicassoVictoria Charles5h 33m4.2 (49)$10 · $0.00
Lewesdon Hill, with other poemsWilliam Crowe2h 57m$2 · $0.00
KleeDonald Wigal1h 49m4.5 (11)$13.50 · $0.00
RomanticismLéon Rosenthal4h 4m4.1 (25)$15 · $0.00