Modern Beauty: Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil (Fleurs du Mal)

This course will seek to understand the modern experience of the beautiful by reading the poetry of Charles Baudelaire.

His poems redefine the notion of beauty for a modern audience, stretching the conventional boundaries of art and poetry by finding beauty in what was previously thought ugly (e.g., a carcass or hypocrisy).

In order to examine how he does this, we will e-mail a selection of his poems in English translation before the class. Participants with prior knowledge of Baudelaire are encouraged to suggest poems as well. No knowledge of French necessary.

(class size: 12)