Charles Pierre Baudelaire is one of the most important poets in French and world literature. He was born in Paris on April 9, 1821. His father, a man of learning and a devotee of the ideals of the Enlightenment, died in 1827, leaving Charles a rich intellectual legacy. His mother remarried Colonel Opik, something Charles never forgave her for. One day in 1839, he decided to rebel against the bourgeois lifestyle of his mother and stepfather and attempted to travel to India. However, he failed and returned to Paris. It was then that he met Jeanne Duval, a young woman of mixed race who introduced him to the pleasures and pains of passion. In 1842, he was placed under judicial supervision; he was deeply in debt and living in abject poverty. It was then that he began writing the poetry collection *The Flowers of Evil*. He worked as an art critic and journalist.

Throughout his work, Baudelaire seeks to marry beauty with evil, violence with pleasure, and to demonstrate their kinship. He expresses melancholy and nostalgia. Baudelaire was also the first to translate Poe into French (he primarily translated the “Tales of the Unusual”), thereby contributing to the dissemination of Poe’s work throughout Europe. Many consider some of Baudelaire’s translations to be superior even to the original texts.

In 1848, he took part in the Barricade Revolution, and it was said that he urged the revolutionaries to shoot his stepfather.
«The Flowers of Evil» was first published in 1857 and was condemned for offending public decency. He later left for Brussels, where he met Félicien Rop, who illustrated *The Flowers of Evil*.

He died on August 31, 1867, in Paris from paralysis and aphasia. He was questioned and criticized by his contemporaries, but today he is recognized as a great poet. The court ruling regarding the offense against public decency was overturned in 1949, at which time Baudelaire’s work was rehabilitated.

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