Baudelaire's poetry was considered scandalous at the time. He influenced Eliot though, whom I love. So I had to read him. They are beautifully written but gritty in some parts. The man led a sad life (he loved Edgard Allen Poe so that should tell you something) and died in his forties due to poor health brought on by addiction. Sad life, but he would write.
Here is why James Mustich thinks it is one of the 1000 Books to Read Before You Die: The Flowers of Evil (Les Fleurs du mal) was Baudelaire’s first volume of poems, and it announces its sumptuous depravity right from the start. On account of its descriptions of “unnatural” sex, its fiendish insistence on the connection between sexuality and death, and its vivid portraits of urban seediness, The Flowers of Evil led to Baudelaire’s prosecution for public indecency upon its original publication in 1857. Six poems were banned, and Baudelaire was fined three hundred francs. If the shudder came from the poet’s caress of corruption, drunkenness, and melancholy, the lasting thrill came from his unabashed conviction that the dignity of art and even beauty fell outside the borders of morality.
