Baudelaire

Dandy, prodigal, debaucher, voluptuary, opium addict, convicted blasphemer and offender of public morals, Charles Baudelaire is considered one of the two or three greatest French poets, and is assuredly the most widely read around the world. Born in Paris in 1821, he died there forty-six miserable years later, in that fabulous city he both loved and hated -- and turned to so often in his writings -- died of syphilis in his mother's arms, having squandered his inheritance, drowning in debt, moving from one squalid furnished room to another, one step ahead of the landlord and his creditors, scorned by those he scorned, a failure in his own eyes and to the smug, stuffy, self-righteous bourgeoisie he so loathed
In form, if not in content, Flowers of Evil marked a culmination of all the French poetry in verse that preceded it, and the beginning of its demise. To take its place, it was Baudelaire himself who, for all intents and purposes, originated a brand new genre, the prose poem, to which he devoted the last dozen years of his life, and which, indeed, he considered his crowning achievement. In a letter to his friend and publisher, which serves as an introduction to the collection Le Spleen de Paris, ou Petits Poemes en prose, Baudelaire wrote:\
THE DESIRE TO PAINT
Unhappy perhaps is man, but happy the artist torn by desire.
I am burning to paint her, that enigmatic woman whom I had glimpsed so rarely and who fled so quickly, like something beautiful regretfully left behind by a traveler swept off into the night. Ah, how long it has been already since she vanished!
She is lovely, and more than lovely: she is astonishing. Darkness abounds in her, and she is inspired by everything deep and nocturnal. Her eyes are two caverns in which mystery vaguely flickers, and a sudden glance from her illuminates like a flash of lightning -- an explosion in the dark of night.
I would compare her to a black sun, if only one could conceive of such a star pouring forth light and happiness. But it is the moon, rather, to which she is more readily likened; it is the moon that has marked her indelibly with its redoubtable influence; not the stark white moon of romantic idylls, that icy bride, but the sinister, inebriating moon suspended in the depths of a stormy night and brushed by racing clouds; not the peaceful, discreet moon visiting the sleep of guiltless men, but the moon ripped from the heavens, defeated and rebellious, that the Thessalian witches cruelly compelled to dance on the terrified grass.
In her little skull dwell a tenacious will and a love of prey. And yet from the lower part of that disturbing face, beneath restless nostrils eagerly inhaling the unknown and the impossible, laughter will burst out suddenly and with ineffable grace, and her wide mouth, all redness and whiteness -- and delectable -- makes one dream of the miracle of a superb flower blossoming in a volcanic soil.
There are women who fill men with a desire to conquer them and have their way with them; but this woman inspires a longing to die slowly under her gaze.