Literary Significance and Criticism
The author and the publisher were prosecuted under the regime of the Second Empire as an outrage aux bonnes mœurs (trans. "an insult to public decency"). As a consequence of this prosecution, Baudelaire was fined 300 francs. Six poems from the work were suppressed and the ban on their publication was not lifted in France until 1949. These poems were "Lesbos", "Femmes damnés (À la pâle clarté)" (or "Women Doomed (In the pale glimmer...)"), "Le Léthé" (or "Lethe"), "À celle qui est trop gaie" (or "To Her Who Is Too Gay"), "Les Bijoux" (or "The Jewels"), and " Les "Métamorphoses du Vampire" (or "The Vampire's Metamorphoses"). These were later published in Brussels in a small volume entitled Les Épaves (Jetsam).
On the other hand, upon reading "The Swan" or "Le Cygne" from Les Fleurs du mal, Victor Hugo announced that Baudelaire had created "un nouveau frisson" (a new shudder, a new thrill) in literature.
In the wake of the prosecution a second edition was issued in 1861 which added 32 new poems, removed the six suppressed poems and added a new section entitled Tableaux Parisiens.
A posthumous third edition with a preface by Théophile Gautier and including 14 previously unpublished poems was issued in 1868.
Read more about this topic: Les Fleurs Du Mal
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