BAUDELAIRE'S CONSCIOUSNESS OF THE HORROR AND ECSTASY OF EXISTENCE Available to Purchase

TO UNDERSTAND AND APPRECIATE the writings of Charles Baudelaire it is necessary to know something of his character, life and outlook, for they throw light on the beliefs he expresses in his works. It is interesting, though probably useless, to speculate whether the sensitive, mother‐fixated boy of six would have developed differently, if his father had not died, and if his idolized young mother had not remarried, and thus aroused violent jealousy and hatred in the child. Baudelaire's nostalgia for his comfortable and elegant home is expressed in an early poem in Les Fleurs du Mal