Edgar Allan Poe's work is always being rediscovered, but perhaps his most enthusiastic champion was another poet—Charles Baudelaire. The major critical works that brought this "singular genius" to an appreciative European audience were essays written by Baudelaire as introductions to his translations of Poe's fiction and poetry, essays largely unknown in North America. "Fatal Destinies" includes new translations by Joan Fiedler Mele of an essay first published in the "Revue de Paris" in 1852, the critical introductions to the 1856 and 1857 French editions of Poe's work, and four shorter pieces written between 1848 and 1865.
Author
Charles Pierre Baudelaire was a 19th century French poet, translator, and literary and art critic whose reputation rests primarily on Les Fleurs du Mal; (1857; The Flowers of Evil) which was perhaps the most important and influential poetry collection published in Europe in the 19th century. Similarly, his Petits poèmes en prose (1868; "Little Prose Poems") was the most successful and innovative early experiment in prose poetry of the time. Known for his highly controversial, and often dark poetry, as well as his translation of the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, Baudelaire's life was filled with drama and strife, from financial disaster to being prosecuted for obscenity and blasphemy. Long after his death many look upon his name as representing depravity and vice. Others see him as being the poet of modern civilization, seeming to speak directly to the 20th century.
