Baudelaire

This book of linked essays contains the first critical study of Baudelaire''s development as a poet from his youth onward. It also includes studies of the development of Baudelaire''s aesthetic detailed commentaries on a number of his finest poems and accounts of three intriguing and crucial encounters with notable contemporaries. Three of the essays are previously unpublished and four very recent; the other eleven have been thoroughly updated revised and in some cases substantially expanded. Together they constitute a new and important contribution to the understanding and appreciation of Baudelaire''s work.