Charles Baudelaire, Petits poèmes en prose [Short Prose Poems]

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Charles Baudelaire's

Petits Poèmes en Prose

(also known as

Le Spleen de Paris

) is a collection of fifty prose poems published posthumously in 1869, over a year after the poet's death. Although Baudelaire had been preparing this collection for publication, he never finalized the ordering or even the exact list of poems to include; moreover, what is now regarded as the preface to the poems was in reality a simple cover letter that accompanied a small group of titles the poet had earlier submitted to a magazine.

Given this somewhat rough and incomplete state, it is surprising how such a slender volume should rise to the stature it has today, for the Petits Poèmes en prose now rival Baudelaire's earlier verse collection, Les Fleurs du mal (1857), as one of the most important titles of

2945 words

Citation: Carpenter, Scott. "Petits poèmes en prose". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 May 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=11257, accessed 19 March 2024.]

11257 Petits poèmes en prose 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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