The Crown of Pain - Some Difficulties One Encounters When Translating Baudelaire

 

The Crown of Pain

Some initial Difficulties One Encounters

When Translating Baudelaire

 

 

Since 1909, when the first translation into English appeared by Cyril Scott, Les Fleurs du Mal by Baudelaire has been translated as The Flowers of Evil, and yet, while I was translating the text over a period of thirteen years, 2013-2026, the overwhelming feeling that I got from my reading of the book was not evil, but pain. “Ca fait mal!” you will hear French people say, every day, and when you hear them saying this phrase, it is not evil that they mean but pain. “That hurts!” they are saying. “Ca fait Mal!” “It Hurts!” So, why then did Cyril Scott translate mal as evil in the context of Les Fleurs du Mal and so many subsequent translators since? This is one of the fundamental things you have to ask yourself when you are approaching a translation yourself, as the title is the most important job that you will do, and particularly with a book like Les Fleurs du Mal by Baudelaire.

 

Well, the answer to that question lies in the historic context of the publication of the book, so Cyril Scott’s translation appeared in 1909. What was the literary context of the time, in relation to Baudelaire I mean? This is what we will now examine, as it is only by doing so that we will come close to understanding the origin of the title into English The Flowers of Evil. Evil, that is a very charged word in the English language, and it means something different to every generation. For example, when we speak of evil today, and people do, it usually evokes Hannah Arendt and Eichmann in Jerusalem, A Report on the Banality of Evil ( 1963). This is still the context that most modern readers think about when they hear the word today, Arendt’s bureaucratic nightmare which results in the holocaust of millions and all orchestrated by some little bespectacled figure sitting behind a glass screen. This is a very different image of evil to what the connotations of the word meant at fin de siècle London and Paris. So, what visions the word conjure up back then?

 

 

 

III

 

Thou sawest, in thine old singing season, brother,

Secrets and sorrows unbeheld of us;

Fierce loves, and lovely leaf-buds poisonous,

Bare to thy subtler eye, but for none other

Blowing by night in some unbreathed-in-clime;

The hidden harvest of luxurious time,

Sin without shape, and pleasure without speech;

And where strange dreams in a tumultuous sleep

Make the shut eyes of stricken spirits weep;

And with each face thou sawest the shadow on each,

Seeing as men sow men reap. [1]

 

The above verse is taken from Algernon Charles Swinburn’s ( 1837-1909) elegy Ave Alque Vale which the poet dedicated to Baudelaire appearing in Swinburn’s most popular and scandalous book Poems and Songs ( 1866), just a year before Baudelaire died.  It was Swinburn who had introduced the British reading public to the work of Baudelaire in an article first published in The Spectator [2] in September, 1862. The first edition of Les Fleurs du Mal published by Auguste Poulet- Malassis in June of that year, eleven hundred copies printed (1857) and within a month of their publication the authorities were condemning the book, and six of the poems were subsequently banned that August granting Les Fleurs du Mal an immediate scandal which of course was the best thing that could ever have happened to the author, as he was now an instant talking point, yet much to his apparent distress. So, by the time Swinburn’s article appears in The Spectator, the second edition ( 1861) has already been placed upon the shelves.  

 

 

As you can see from Swinburn’s verse above, the language is immediately recognisable as being quintessentially Victorian.  

 

Thou sawest, in thine old singing season, brother,

Secrets and sorrows unbeheld of us;

 

The Victorian age was a period, rather like our own today, of sweeping changes. Particularly in Britain, the industrial revolution was in full tilt, the empire was at its peak. Just as Baudelaire’s beloved medieval Lutece was being thorn down to be replaced by Hausmann’s Boulevards, the industrialisation that was manifesting itself all around the city of London was having an equal impact on poets and writers and artists there. One only had to think of the novels of Charles Dickens ( 1812-1870), his famous novel depicting such advancing social change A Tale of Two Cities ( 1859), but also later writers from Ireland such as Oscar Wilde (1854- 1900) who was profoundly influenced by poets like Baudelaire and also another former Trinity scholar Bram Stoker ( 1847-1912) whose novel Dracula ( 1897) was to have such a success, and the former’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray ( 1890) both being considered two of the finest examples of Gothic fiction and which was being produced at the time.

 

The Victorian Age was one of many revivals, Gothic being just one of them. The poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti ( 1828-1882) had founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood ( 1848) which was to have had such an influence on poets like Swinburn, the two knew each other quite well. Indeed, Rossetti was to champion Dante as Swinburn would champion Baudelaire, Rossetti’s translation of Dante’s Vita nuova ( 1861) appearing right around the same time as Swinburn was writing about Baudelaire. This is the climate that Swinburn is in, and indeed it is from out of such a heady culture of influences - Gothic, Pre-Raphaelite that Baudelaire’s first translator comes from. Cyril Scott ( 1879 – 1931) was born into this world, and although principally a composer of some renown, he was also a poet and something of an occultist, but most importantly for our present work he also befriended a the French poet Charles Bonnier ( 1863 – 1926) who studied under the French linguist Ferdinand Saussure and who introduced Scott to the works of Baudelaire and other French poets while he was a professor at the University of Liverpool.           

 

I think the Gothic revival that was going on in England at the time must have been very influential on Scott, but there is also the figure of Arthur Symons ( 1865-1945) who is associated with the decadent movement and the famous Yellow Book which published the illustrations and art work of Audrey Beardsley ( 1872 – 1898) who was to illustrate Wilde’s play Salomé ( 1893) written in French by Wilde and published in France too before being translated into English. It was Arthur Symons, apparently, who was to encourage Cyril Scott to translate Baudelaire and whose Flowers of Evil was to be published in 1909. Scott was a young man of thirty at the time. I find this quotation by his biographer to be most revealing.

 

Even Baudelaire whom he translated as a tour de force

( inspired to be so by the encouragement of Arthur Symons)

only appealed to him in a very limited degree; for though

he went through what is called a decadent phase, he confessed

he only did so half-heartedly and with no conviction. [3]  

 

I want to present a translation by Scott of Baudelaire now before going any further, and the poem that I have chosen, or rather the translation that I have decided to present is one of the most famous sonnets in the French language, and which I personally consider to be the most important sonnet of the 19^th century. But the reason why I have picked this particular sonnet, or translation by Scott is because I want to focus now on two things which I believe are fundamental when translating the poetry of Baudelaire. The first thing is to do with rhyme, and the second is to do with literal translation. But first, here are the first two verses of poem XCIII A UNE PASSANTE.

 

A Une Passante

 

 

La rue assourdissante autour de moi hurlait.

Longue, mince, en grand deuil, douleur majesteuse,

Une femme passa, d’une main fastueuse

Soulevant, balançant le festoon et l’ourlet;

 

Agile et noble, avec sa jambe de statue.

Moi, je bouvais, crispé comme un extravagant,

Dans son œil, ciel livide oû germe l’ouragan,

La douceur qui fascine et le plaisir qui tue. [4]

 

Now, here is the translation into English by Cyril Scott which was to appear in the very first translation into English of The Flowers of Evil ( 1909).

 

 

To a Passer-by

 

Around me thundered the deafening noise of the street,

In mourning apparel, portraying majestic distress,

With queenly fingers, just lifting the hem of her dress,

A stately woman passed with hurrying feet.

 

Agile and noble, with limbs of perfect poise,

Ah, how I drank, thrilled through like a Being insane,

In her look, a dark sky, from whence springs forth the hurricane,

There lay but the sweetness of her charms, and the joy that destroys. [5]

The first thing that needs to be pointed out is the ABBA ABBA rhyming scheme, as it Predetermines everything that has come to pass; street in the first line rhymes with feet in the last line of the first verse, and distress in the second rhymes with dress in the last word of the third! All has been abandoned for the sake of these rhymes. Of course, the second verse follows the exact same rhyming scheme. I should say a word at this point on the Rhyming Club, which still exits apparently,[6] having been founded by William Butler Yeats ( 1890) no less.

 

Before I go into the whole debate about rhyming or not, ( to rhyme or not to rhyme, that is the question when it comes to Baudelaire, it seems to me?) I want to first present my own, non-rhyming translation of the same tow opening stanzas of A Une Passante before commenting on them and comparing them to those of Scott, and then I will show why I think this is still a very problematic issue in the whole subject of the public’s perception of Baudelaire and his poetry by looking at some near contemporary translations which continue to use rhyming schemes much to the detriment of Baudelaire, at least such is my opinion.

 

 

To a Woman Passing

 

 

The deafening street about you screams.

Majestic suffering, a great dual;

Tall and slim, a woman passes with a fastidious hand,

Balancing and raising it with the hem of her skirt.

 

 

 

Agile and noble, and with statuesque limb.

 Overcome like some fool, you drink her in.

In her eye exists a livid storm where hurricanes originate;

The gentleness which fascinates, the pleasure which kills.

 

The first thing to note is the title, A Une Passante – the French article une is in the feminine case as is the corresponding noun passante, the male form is signalled without the e (Un passant- masculine, une passante feminine). So ,by giving the title To a Passer-by we are already missing a very important distinction in the subject of the poem, as the poem is about a Woman passing. I have left out the preposition as it just appears to be unnecessary. This may appear to be grammatical pedantry, I don’t think so. I think it is pretty fundamental!

 

I wish to turn to the magnificent opening line in French now. ‘La rue assourdissante autour de moi hurlait.’ There is an astonishing onomatope going on in this line which mimics the sound of a screaming carriage passing by on the street. It is very violent. But instead of this very brutal violence of passing traffic, which is the effect that Baudelaire is trying to get across, the rhymer is merely thinking about his rhyme. 

 

Around me thundered the deafening noise of the street,

A stately woman passed with hurrying feet.

 

Thus foregoing all of the drama of the poem, and what we are left is a very dainty rhyme, the complete opposite of the effect that Baudelaire conveys in the French original. Brooding violence is one of the singular hallmarks of Les Fleurs du Mal, not in any Satanic sense, but just on a purely sensory level;  its visceral and its so important this very nuance to this poem as the violence of the street is animating also the violence of the encounter; for the woman who is passing is not some dainty little lady, no, she is the ideal incarnate of the very first section of the collection Spleen et idéal – the amazon incarnate! This is the genius of Baudelaire’s poem, as in one sublime aphorism he manages, rather like Heraclitus himself, to contain a whole philosophy in one line, one line which Cyril Scott absolutely butchers.

 

Dans son œil, ciel livide oû germe l’ouragan,

La douceur qui fascine et le plaisir qui tue.

 

In her look, a dark sky, from whence springs forth the hurricane,

There lay but the sweetness of her charms, and the joy that destroys.

 

In her eye exists a livid storm where hurricanes originate;

The gentleness which fascinates, the pleasure which kills.

 

This is why translations of Baudelaire, of all canonical works, need to be constantly updated. But the problem, rather than being resolved, it seems to me, is sometimes merely echoed in a kind of insane game of Chinese whispers! Let me illustrate what I mean by exploring the work of a much more contemporary poet than Scott and yet one who seems to be following exactly the same tradition as him. I am speaking of none other than Derek Mahon.

 

*

 

I remember sitting in The Gladstone Inn in my hometown of Skerries in the early summer of 2015. Lapwing in Belfast had just published a collection of my first transversions from Baudelaire and I had a roomful of fellow poets, some of whom I really admired, sitting in the audience waiting for me to start reciting some of my translations. There was even a poet over from Belgium, sadly deceased now, Jean-Claude Crommelynck ( dit CeeJay), who read the original poems by Baudelaire in French. He was a rather large garrulous figure and the locals, typically fishermen, looked in on us with some amusement and curiosity. While I sat there admiring CeeJay’s delivery, it suddenly dawned on me that I would have to read my transversions aloud and I had not even given any real thought as yet to their delivery. Well, as my transversions were mainly without rhyme, I didn’t have too long to find a suitably corresponding figure in English literature and that was John Milton. Imagine that you are reading Milton aloud in English to them, I thought. And I would say the same here. Here is a verse translated by Nathan Brown ( Verso, 2025) in which he guards the rhyme.

 

I practice my fantastic fencing as I go,

Sniffing very corner for the chance of rhyme,

Stumbling over words like paving stones,

Bumping into lines dreamed of long ago.[i]

 

This is the second verse from the second poem in on section two, poem LXXXVIII LE SOLEIL/ THE SUN.

 

Je vais m’exercer seul à ma fantasque escrime,

Flairant dans tous les coins les hazards de la rime,

Trébuchant sur les mots comme sur les pavés,

Heurtant parfois des vers depuis longtemps rêvés.

 

French is a romance language where every vowel sound is emphasised giving it its very wonderful serpentine nature, rolling up and down upon the tongue, rhyming effortlessly. English, in stark contrast, is a Germanic language where the stress is placed on the content words, as I keep insisting with my third year undergraduate Business English students who mainly hail from France.

 

There, I exercise alone my fantastic duel,

Teasing out every possible hazardous off-rhyme,

Stumbling upon the words like upon cobble stones,

Falling upon verse a long time dreamed of before.

 

The above translation is my own, without the atrocious one two one two rhyme which I find to be a mere distraction. Admittedly, this is all a question of taste, which, at the end of the day, is completely subjective. However, if you, like me, find the rhyming translations which for the large part exist in English not to your liking, perhaps you may appreciate my translations and transversions which contain a few rhymes which generally when they did appear appeared by their own volition, as opposed to being forced. I can’t help but feel the rather forced feeling of the rhyming versions in English.

 

Here is another rhyming version, this time of the celebrated poem Le Cynge / The Swan and this translation is made by Aaron Poochigian [ii] , once again the translator has stuck with the self-same title The Flowers of Evil which shows a certain conformity to the status quo, this is something extremely important. As The Crown of Pain is distinctive not only by the fact that it is a non-rhyming version, but also it does not follow the typical reading of Baudelaire, the one that we have all become so familiar with; the poet of ‘Evil!’ I find this all so tedious at this stage, and it really offering the reader the self -same standard variation of the poems by Baudelaire. Here is the opening verse of Poochigian’s version of The Swan.

 

 

 

 

 

My thoughts turn to you, Andromache –

that little stream, the mournful looking glass

that caught your whole widowhood’s majesty,

the tears you shed to feed the ‘Simoïs’.

 

that quickened in my fecund recollection,

as I walked through the modern Carrousel

the old Paris is gone. A town’s complexion,

like human hearts, never stays put at all.

 

While I find this ABAB rhyming scheme much more palatable, as it is less intrusive, I still find that all of the drama of the original is lost.

 

Andromaque, je pense à vous! Ce petit fleuve,

Pauvre et triste mirror oû jadis resplendit

L’immense majesté de vos douleurs de veuve,

Ce Simoïs menteur qui par vos pleurs grandit,

 

A fécondé soudain ma mémoire fertile,

Comme je traversais le nouveau Carrousel.

Le vieux Paris n’est plus ( la forme d’une ville

Change plus vite, hélas! que le cœur d’un mortel);

 

Adromaque, I think of you! That little river,

Poor sad mirror that reflects a resplendent past

And the immense majesty of a widow’s sorrows,

That lying Simoeis who by tears rises,

 

 

 

Suddenly awakened my fertile memory,

As I walked past the Carrousel.

Old Paris exists no more ( the shape of the city

Changes quicker, sadly, then the heart of a mortal);

 

For me, one of the main areas of contention that I have with a lot of the existing translations of Baudelaire, as above, is the absence of some of the great Baudelairean  collocations that exist in the original and which, along with the French rhymes, are part of the overall DNA of a poem by Baudelaire. As a translator, this is something you become instinctively attuned to when you are making your word choice, as you want to, whenever possible, not alter these unmistakable signs of the poet. For example, in the verses above the collocations ‘L’immense majesté’, or  ‘Immense majesty’ as opposed to ‘widowhood’s majesty’ of Poochigian’s version. This is so typical of translations which are focused on rhyme, the whole architectural drama, notice the collocation starts the phrase in Capitals; again something which Poochigian alters, by taking out the capitals and foregoing the ‘immense majesty’ Poochigian looses out completely on the overt majesty of Baudelaire’s poetics. Immense majesty is far more than a collocation, it is an architectural trope I would posit rather like a portico over a Georgian door. To extract it is to extract a fundamental essence of this most majestic poet.

 

I should like to move on now and treat another rhyming translation but this time by a famous Irish poet, namely Derek Mahon, once again the poem is taken from the Tableaux Parisiens section as the previous two. The poem in question is the very first LXXXVI PAYSAGE, PAYSAGE. Here is the original first in French.

 

Je veux, pour composer mes écologues,

Coucher auprès du ciel, comme les astrologues,

Et, Voisin des clocher, écouter en révant

Leurs hymnes solennels emportés par le vent.

Les deux mains au menton, du haut de ma mansard,

Je verrai l’atelier qui chante et qui bavarde;

Les tiyaux, les clochers, ces mats de la cité,

Et les grands ciel qui fond réver d’éternité.

 

This magnificent poem, in the French original it just flows along, so it is imperative to try and catch the flow, but also, retain the majesty!

 

In order to compose more chastely my eclogues, I wish

To sleep under the sky like the cosmologists,

And listen while dreaming under the bells

Under their solemn hymns transported on the winds.

Up in the attic, with both hands under my chin,

Where I’d see in the atelier those who’d talk and sing;

The pipes and the bells, those steeples and the city,

And the great skies which make you dream of eternity.

 

This version certainly flows, thanks to the rhymes in part, AABB this time, yet also with those wonderful collocations that I have referred to as Baudelaire’s DNA. Read the last line above again, as it is one of my favourite lines by the poet. Now, here is Mahon’s ‘adaptation’ as he called them. [7]

 

Chastely to write these eclogues I need to lie,

like the astrologers, in an attic next the sky

where, high among church spires, I can dream and hear

their grave hymns wind-blown to my ivory tower.

Chin in hand, up here in my apartment block,

I can see workshops full of noise and talk,

cranes and masts of the ocean-going city,

vast cloud-pack photographs of eternity. [iii] 

 

I simply don’t know why he did it! If you are going to make a change to a line, as a rule, it must surely be because you cannot translate literally! Otherwise, what would be the point? Unless you think that you can out Baudelaire Baudelaire!!!! As I say, I don’t know why Mahon committed the above monstrosity, as that is what it is. Here are the lines again.

 

Et les grands ciel qui fond réver d’éternité.

 

And the great skies which make you dream of eternity.

 

 

Notice also that Mahon, like Poochigian, does not use capital letters to begin the first line. This was a style of that particular generation of poets who disdained formal register, and once again I would posit that this less formal style simply does not suit Baudelaire’s grandeur.

 

Now, to terminate this brief study on different styles and versions of translation, a comparative exercise, I should like to now choose a couplet, my favourite couplet in the French language taken from one of the censored poems LE LETHÉ. This time I will give the poem in full.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IV

LE LETHÉ

 

 

Viens sur mon cœur, âme cruelle et soured,

Tigre adore, monster aux airs indolents;

Je veux longtemps plonger mes doigts tremblants

Dans l’épaisseur de ta criniere lourde;

 

Dans tes joupons remplis de ton parfum

Ensevelir ma tête endolorie,

Et respire, comme une fleur flétrie,

Le doux relent de mon amour defunct.

 

Je veux dormir! dormir plutôt que vive !

Dans un sommeil aussi doux que la mort,

J’étalerais mes baisers sans remord

Sur ton beau corps poli comme le cuivre.

 

Pour engloutir mes sanglots apaisés

Rien ne me vaut l’abîme de ta couche;

L’oubli puissant habite sur ta bouche,

Et le Léthe coule dans tes baisers.

 

A mon destin, désormais mon délice,

J’obérais comme un prédstiné;

Martyr docile, innocent condamné,

Don’t la fervour attise le supplice,

 

 

Je sucerai, pour noyer ma rancœur,

Le néphentes et le bonne ciguë,

Aux bouts charmants de cette gorge aigues

Qui n’a jamais emprisonné de cœur.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IV

 

A FRENCH KISS

 

 

 

For a longtime I have wanted to plunge my trembling fingers

Into the depths of your heavy mane of hair;  

 Deaf and cruel soul, come to my heart,

Adored tigress, monster with the indolent airs,

 

In your perfumed lap I have long wanted

 To bury my aching head,

And like an old fetid flower breath in

The gentle collapse of my defunct Love.

 

I want to sleep, Sleep more than live

In a sleep that is as gentle and as soft as Death.

Remorselessly, I’ll spread my kisses

All over your beautiful sun-kissed body.

 

For nothing is quite like the abyss of your bed

To soothe my burning tears;

Forgetfulness inhabits your lips, and in the river

 of oblivion, I am pulled into their powerful currents.

 

 

 

 

From herein my fated delicacy

Appears to be obeying you like one predestined;

A docile martyr, an innocent condemned;

The fervour merely fuels the torture,

 

And to drown all of my remaining rancour, I have considered

Pitcher Plants or the good hemlock,

At the bottom of that charming steep gorge

Which has never imprisoned a single soul.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                              

 

Whenever people ask me why do I bother translating the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, as he is one of the most translated poets that exists in the literary pantheon, I merely will guide them to the following couplet, which for me is one of the finest in the French language.

 

L’oubli puissant habite sur ta bouche,

Et le Léthe coule dans tes baisers.

 

Now, there are many ways you could approach translating this beautiful couplet. For instance…

 

Oblivion lives upon your lips,

And the Lethe flows through your kisses.

 

This is a rather traditional way of translating it, as the translator is remaining almost as loyal as they possibly can changing as little of the words used by the poet in the original and with any changes striving to keep as much the original meaning, which can be very difficult at times. L’oubli pussiant swapped for Oblivion as powerful forgetfulness, which is literally what we have in the French simply doesn’t cut it. Hence Oblivion is the word of choice here. Now lips instead of mouth, also, is the next change. As if you say..

 

A powerful forgetfulness lives in your mouth

 

This is the French line translated literally as it is into English, it simply doesn’t make any sense. It sounds like a dental issue! Are we talking about dental plaque? No, impossible. So, we take a few liberties and we come up with the couplet above.  So why then did I come up with the following?

 

Forgetfulness inhabits your lips, and in the river

 of oblivion, I am pulled into their powerful currents.

 

One of the principal changes is taking out the reference to Lethe, which most contemporary readers will not understand. Classics is no longer a study in most universities, so the reference will most probably be lost upon them, and moreover, Lethe in English sounds flat and I very much wanted to get the idea of a passionate kiss across in English, as this is what the poet is describing here. And it is a monumental couplet for this reason, as Baudelaire, as only Baudelaire can do, describes a passionate kiss in the most poetic way possible but poetic in a very visceral and profound way, as this is exactly what a kiss should feel like. A river of forgetfulness where your partner’s lips are attaching gently onto yours and they are pulling you in like a current in a river, a very powerful current which is very dangerous, because it is so strong. I really wanted to get that feeling across, of the passionate kiss.

Now, I want to show you now, after I have explained my choices a few existing translationsthat are out there of the same couplet, so that you can see why, perhaps, I feel so strongly about the need to translate Baudelaire into English in a realistic manner which may bring him to more English speaking readers.

 

Potent oblivion inhabits your mouth,

And Lethe flows in your kisses.

 

( Translation Nathan Brown, as before Verso edition 2026 )

 

Forgetfulness is moistening your breath,

Lethe itself runs smoothly in your kiss.[iv]

 

 

 

Forgetfulness dwells in your mouth,

And Lethe flows from your kiss. [v]

 

( New Directions )

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45275/ave-atque-vale-56d224b50fa53

 

[2] Brennan, Thomas J. "Creating From Nothing: Swinburne and Baudelaire in "Ave Atque Vale"." Victorian Poetry, vol. 44 no. 3, 2006, p. 251-271. Project MUSE, https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/vp.2006.0028.

[3] Hull, Eaglefield A. : Cyril Scott Composer, Poet and Philosopher, Library of Music and Musicians, 1919, p.151. 

 

 

 

[4] Baudelaire, Charles: Les Fleurs du Mal, Introduction de Claude Pichois, NRF, Gallimard, Paris, 1972, p.126.

[5] https://www.gutenberg.org/files/36098/36098-h/36098-h.htm#To_a_Passer-by

 

[6] https://www.therhymersclub.com/about-us

 

[7] I try to follow Ted Hughe’s dictum about translating literally when I can, but when I can’t, and sometimes with Baudelaire you simply cannot/ must not, I call this ‘transversions’.

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[i] Brown, Nathan : The Flowers of Evil, The Definitive English Language Edition, Verso Books, 2025. ISBN-1804296600.

[ii] Poochigian, Aaron: The Flowers of Evil, Liveright, 2020.  ISBN – 978-1631498602.

[iii] Mahon, Derek: Collected Poems, The Gallery Press, 2001. ISBN – 1-85235-255-8.

[iv] McGowan, James: The Flowers of Evil, Oxford World’s Classics, 2008. ISBN – 13 – 978-0199535583.

[v] The Flowers of Evil, Edited by Jackson Meadows and Michael Mathews, New Directions, New York, 1990. ISBN – 10 – 97808112111.