Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire was a 19th century French poet, translator, and literary and art critic whose reputation rests primarily on Les Fleurs du Mal; (1857; The Flowers of Evil) which was perhaps the most important and influential poetry collection published in Europe in the 19th century. Similarly, his Petits poèmes en prose (1868; "Little Prose Poems") was the most successful and innovative early experiment in prose poetry of the time.
Known for his highly controversial, and often dark poetry, as well as his translation of the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, Baudelaire's life was filled with drama and strife, from financial disaster to being prosecuted for obscenity and blasphemy. Long after his death many look upon his name as representing depravity and vice. Others see him as being the poet of modern civilization, seeming to speak directly to the 20th century.
“My well-beloved was stripped. Knowing my whim,She wore her tinkling gems, but naught besides:And showed such pride as, while her luck betides,A sultan's favoured slave may show to him.When it lets off its lively, crackling sound,This blazing blend of metal crossed with stone,Gives me an ecstasy I've only knownWhere league of sound and luster can be found.She let herself be loved: then, drowsy-eyed,Smiled down from her high couch in languid ease.My love was deep and gentle as the seasAnd rose to her as to a cliff the tide.My own approval of each dreamy pose,Like a tamed tiger, cunningly she sighted:And candour, with lubricity united,Gave piquancy to every one she chose.Her limbs and hips, burnished with changing lustres,Before my eyes clairvoyant and serene,Swanned themselves, undulating in their sheen;Her breasts and belly, of my vine and clusters,Like evil angels rose, my fancy twitting,To kill the peace which over me she'd thrown,And to disturb her from the crystal throneWhere, calm and solitary, she was sitting.So swerved her pelvis that, in one design,Antiope's white rump it seemed to graftTo a boy's torso, merging fore and aft.The talc on her brown tan seemed half-divine.The lamp resigned its dying flame. Within,The hearth alone lit up the darkened air,And every time it sighed a crimson flareIt drowned in blood that amber-coloured skin”
“Aimer les femmes intelligentes est un plaisir de pédéraste.”
“and over your unconsecrated head you'll hear the howling wolveslament their fate and yours the livelong year;”
“Any healthy man can go without food for two days--but not without poetry.”