Biography of Charles Baudelaire

Unhealthy flowers

9 March 1821 31 August 1867 Charles Baudelaire was born on 9 April 1821 in Paris, in a House of the Neighborhood Latin, from the second marriage of the now 62-year-old Joseph-Francois, an official in the Senate, with the 27-year-old Caroline Archimbaut-Dufays. The mother, following the untimely death of her husband, she marries a handsome Lieutenant Colonel, who, because of their coldness and stiffness (and of bourgeois respectability that was drenched), you will earn the hatred of the stepson. In the node painful relationships with the family and, above all, with his mother, to play much of the misery and existential discomfort that accompanies Baudelaire throughout his life. After all, as inter alia testifies the intense epistolary left, he will always ask for help and love to his mother, the love that believe reciprocated, at least compared to the intensity of demand. In 1833 he entered the Collège Royal at the behest of the stepfather. Within a short time, however, the fame of dissolute and daredevil takes to circulate within the collège until, inevitably, the ears of the hated stepfather who, out of spite, forces him to embark on the Paquebot des Mers du Sud, a ship that was en route to the Indies. This trip has an unexpected effect on Charles: lets him know other worlds and cultures, puts him in contact with people of all races, making him discover a dimension far from worldly and cultural decadence that weighs heavy on Europe. From this, then, was his great love for exoticism, the same one that filters through the pages of his major work, the celebrated "flowers of evil. However, after just ten months interrupts the trip to return to Paris, where, now of age, comes into possession of the paternal inheritance, allowing him to live for a time in great freedom. In 1842, after meeting a great poet like Gerard de Nerval, approaches especially in Gautier, and becomes attached to a extreme. The symbiosis between the two is total and Charles will see senior colleague in a kind of moral guidance. On the face of the loves women, instead, after knowing the mulatta Jeanne Duval, goes wild with her intense and passionate affair. Contrary to what often happens to artists of the time, the relationship is strong and last long. Charles draws its lifeblood from Jeanne: she is guardian and lover but also Muse, not only as regards the aspect "erotic" loving baudeleriana production, but also intensely human stamp that shows in many of his poems. Afterwards, then, with the arrival of old age, will present agonizing moments of loving and paralysis that strikes the poet. Meanwhile, the life that Baudelaire to Paris is certainly not of parsimony. When the mother discovers that he has already spent about half of his father's legacy by second husband embarks on a procedure for obtaining a trustee to whom is given the task of administering more accurately the rest of the estate. From now on, Baudelaire will be forced to ask their guardian even money to buy clothes. The 1845 marks his debut as a poet with the publication of "A Creole Lady", while, in order to live, he is forced to work in magazines and newspapers with articles and essays which were later collected in two posthumous books, "art" and "aesthetic Curiosity." In the 1848 revolution in Paris while participating in 1857, published from the Publisher Poulet-Malassis i already mentioned "the flowers of evil", a collection that includes a hundred poems. The revelation of this absolute masterpiece baffles audiences of the time. The book is undoubtedly noticed and does talk about themselves, but rather than literary success itself, perhaps it would be more correct to talk about scandal and morbid curiosity. In the wake of talk confusing and gossip surrounding the text, the book is even tried for immorality and the Publisher is forced to suppress six poems. Baudelaire is depressed and his mind turned upside down. In 1861, attempts suicide. In 1864, after a failed attempt at entering the L'acadèmie francaise, he left Paris and went to Brussels, but the stay in the Belgian town doesn't change its difficulty of relations with bourgeois society. Sick, search in hashish, opium and alcohol on relief to the disease that in 1867, after the long agony of paralysis, will kill him just forty-four years. To those experiences, and the wish to escape reality, were inspired by the "artificial paradises" published in the annus horribilis of 1861. He is buried in Montparnasse cemetery, along with her mother and hated stepfather. In 1949 the French Court of Cassation rehabilitates his memory and his work.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.