Las Vegas Review of Books

Charles Baudelaire, Flowers of Evil, translated by George Dillon and Edna St. Vincent Millay (NYRB Poets), 288 pp. Paperback, $20.00.

In an 1859 essay on photography, Charles Baudelaire proclaims that “poetry and progress are like two ambitious men who hate one another.” Baudelaire’s concern that photography, with its ability to replicate the natural world, could replace art now reads as both hilariously outdated and hauntingly relevant. As artificial intelligence models are employed to automate creative processes like painting and writing (rather than to eliminate exploitative labor), this concern about the instrumentalization of art has become even more legitimate. Finding his inspiration in the din of the Parisian underground, Baudelaire’s poetry has always been in conversation with modernity, making it especially appropriate for times that seem to move at an accelerated pace.

As Mark Dery observes, Baudelaire’s conception of poetry is free from any sense of didactic responsibility. His style flouts any contemporary interest in using art for socially progressive causes, Dery notes, as much as it serves as a provocation against any revanchist desire to reclaim the morality of tradition. It is this exact stance that allows Baudelaire’s work to remain relevant over time. Untied to any singular ideal of progress, whether technological or political, the poète maudit’s cynical idea of beauty lives on like a pathogen that cannot be eradicated.

Baudelaire elaborates on this unconventional and corrosive beauty in his 1863 essay “The Painter of Modern Life,” which praises the work of Constantin Guys. He upholds “the particular beauty of evil” or “beauty amidst what is dreadful.” For the poet, this is the exact type of beauty that characterizes modern Paris, a city where you can “encounter all the different types of errant womanhood, women in rebellion at every level.” Elevating this idea through fantasy, Flowers of Evil takes vampires, giantesses, sirens, and spirits as heroines, and through them Baudelaire seeks his dissolution.

Despite this translation’s age, it is worth reprinting and rereading thanks to the depth that Millay adds to Baudelaire’s portrayal of women.

Those who remain tempted by Baudelaire’s verse can pick up the NYRB’s pocket-sized reprinting of the 1936 English translation of Flowers of Evil, perfect for bringing along on a late-night rendezvous or reading on the train. While there are countless renderings of the infamous collection, Jazz Age poets George Dillon and Edna St. Vincent Millay add a distinct touch to the work. Rather than dampen the expressiveness of each given verse, the two recognize the limitations inherent to translation and adjust accordingly.

A new layer of meaning is added to Baudelaire’s unorthodox portrayal of feminine sensuality when translated by the openly bisexual Edna St. Vincent Millay. In her own poems, such as “Witch-Wife,” she expresses her desire for a woman who will never fully belong to her, or to anyone else. Millay’s artistic fascination with romantic yearning and fruitless love is something she has in common with Baudelaire, and she draws from this to produce wonderful translations. “The Portrait” reflects on a lover lost to death and disease, of whom the reminiscing speaker states, “you cannot rob my memory of one thing,— / Her, that was all my triumph, all my heart.”  Millay writes the final line as “my heart” rather than “pleasure” (plaisir), making this lover seem even more essential to the speaker’s internal world. Additionally, her usage of commas and a dash adds emphasis to the nameless “her” in question, forcing the reader to pause at her mention. Millay’s translation deftly moves the poem from one language to another thanks to her grasp of rhythm and weight.

Another fascinating choice made by Millay is giving “Une Martyr” the English title of “Murdered Woman” as opposed to “The Martyr,” which most translations opt for. This bleak title challenges the poem’s romanticization of violence in a way that only intensifies Baudelaire’s aesthetic balancing act between beauty and disgust. Additionally, Millay builds nuance in her rendition of “You’d take the entire universe to bed with you.” Instead of asking if the poem’s subject has seen her charming looks fade or grow pale (Devant tous les miroirs vu pâlir tes appas?), this version questions if she sees her reflection “blench and recoil” when she looks into a mirror. This establishes the unique cruelty of this woman without resorting to a stereotypical motif of fading feminine beauty. Despite this translation’s age, it is worth reprinting and rereading thanks to the depth that Millay adds to Baudelaire’s portrayal of women.

Explaining the necessity to stray from literal interpretations, Millay clarifies that adaptation might be the best way to describe the journey that she has brought these poems on from French to English. With a metaphor that Baudelaire would approve of, she compares the act of translation to a “wound inflicted” on writing. This permanent alteration can only be alleviated by a poet who can “fill the veins of the poem … with his own blood, and make the poem breath again.” Millay acknowledges that betrayal is inherent to translation, guaranteeing that something will be lost, yet she forges ahead. Admittedly overcome with passion for the process, it is Millay’s intense desire for her source material that gives her the freedom to grasp at the unreachable object that translation implies.

Above all, Millay warns us against any attempt to “tone down” Baudelaire, who experienced enough censorship during his career. She lives up to this claim, with lines that read: “But love for me is only a mattress where I shrink / On needles, and my blood is given to whores to drink.” A more conservative translation could have referred to the women in the final line—cruelles filles—as “cruel girls.” Her style, which has an acerbic potency, is heightened as it takes on Baudelaire’s poetic voice. In these instances, Millay’s renditions could sneak into a translation like Sean Bonney’s fragmented concrete poems, which fully bring Baudelaire’s antipathy into our era.

This preference for direct and cutting language on behalf of Millay and Dillon is easy to notice when comparing their work to that of others. Baudelaire’s “The Litanies of Satan” makes reference to “Crésus,” and some direct translations, like that of James McGowan, accurately present this as “Croesus.” Sean Bonney’s version takes aim against “bourgeois scum” and “wealthy shits.” Millay simply calls this legendary king “the rich man.” Some readers may find lines like this to be lackluster, but they are concise and free from sentimentality.

At other times, Millay and Dillon take liberties that serve to embellish Baudelaire’s original French and allow it to flourish in a new English context. In “The Albatross” Dillon adds dashes and commas, breaking up lines to express the pitiful downfall of the bird while mangling the structure established by earlier stanzas. The piece concludes that “the poet is like that wild inheritor of the cloud” as “he cannot walk for his unmanageable wings.” Such distinct punctuation is absent from the original, and for English readers, it magnifies the drama of the piece.

In a similar manner, Millay uses diction to adorn the poems where appropriate. In “Benediction,” writing about a poet whose passions make him oblivious to the mundane, she suggests that “his lucid essence flames with lightnings,” rather than something like “the flashes of his mind” (les vastes éclairs de son esprit lucide). Much like the translators’ need to put aesthetic sensibility before the utilitarian duty of perfectly communicating the original text, these poems are able to convey the character of an artist who places their idea of beauty above all else.

Those who take a purist approach may be disappointed to find that this edition does away with the section divisions—such as “Spleen and the Ideal,” “Revolt,” and “Wine”—that are present in the original 1857 publication and many other printings. However, Dillon and Millay have put forth considerable effort to preserve the meter of the original poems, a classical French alexandrine. And for those who prefer it, the original French text is included in the volume. First-time readers might be better suited by a more complete collection of the original poems included with Flowers of Evil, but for those looking to get a taste of Baudelaire’s intoxicating poetry, this is a fantastic edition to pick up.