Charles Baudelaire

Charles Pierre Baudelaire is one of the most influential French poets of the nineteenth century. French poet essayist art critic and translator, b. Paris, 9 April 1821, the son of a distinguished friend of Cabanis and Condorcet. He first became famous by the publication of Fleurs du Mal, 1857, in which appeared Les Litanies de Satan. The work was prosecuted and suppressed. Baudelaire translated some of the writings of E. A. Poe, a poet whom he resembled much in life and character. The divine beauty of his face has been celebrated by the French poet, Théodore de Banville, and his genius in some magnificent stanzas by the English poet, Algernon Swinburne. Died Paris 31 Aug. 1867.