Before him, romantic poets of the earlier 19th century often saw themselves as solitary visionaries, more at one with nature than with modern civilization.
Les Fleurs du Mal stands apart from any volume of poetry that came before it both in the scale of Baudelaire’s ambition and the unflinching exploration of the poetic self. Before him, romantic poets of the earlier 19th century often saw themselves as solitary visionaries, more at one with nature than with modern civilization. Baudelaire, on the other hand, is not afraid to explore all aspects of life, from the idealistic highs to the grimiest of lows, in his quest to discover what he calls at the end of the volume “the new.”