Charles Baudelaire: A Study

"Charles Baudelaire: A Study" by Arthur Symons, explores the life and poems of a famous French poet. The book is a close look at the poet's personality, his talent, and the ideas he wrote about in his poems, especially in "Les Fleurs du Mal". Symons tries to understand the complicated ideas and emotions Baudelaire had about life, art, love, and what it means to be human and what made him who he was. The book starts by looking closely at how Baudelaire wrote and the opposite ideas that appear in his work. Symons writes about how Baudelaire showed his talent not by saying things directly, but by hinting at them in quiet ways, often based on his own life and what he saw in the world around him. It tells how Baudelaire had problems with love and sadness, especially with the relationships he had, like the one with Jeanne Duval. The story also talks about how Baudelaire's writing looks and feels, putting his love for both beauty and darkness against a world full of confusing contradictions, focusing on the attraction and dislike of beauty among darkness.