The theme of the book is evil and the relationship between good and evil around evil. Evil refers not only to evil, but also to depression, pain and disease. Flowers can be understood as goodness and beauty. Baudelaire broke away from the view of good and evil for thousands of years, and observed evil from a unique perspective, believing that evil has dual nature, both evil and special beauty. On the one hand, it corrodes and infringes on human beings, on the other hand, it is full of the spirit of challenge and resistance, encouraging people to fight against their own laziness and social injustice, so Baudelaire hates and praises evil, and fears and yearns for it. He lives in evil, but he tries not to be swallowed up by evil. On the contrary, he faced evil critically and analyzed it. If it is a morbid flower, it is an evil flower, which means that the environment in which it grows is morbid and evil. Baudelaire believes that "all good and noble things are the result of human efforts" and "good is always the product of human efforts" from the Christian theory of "original sin", so we can only dig out evil through our own efforts. Picking the flowers of evil is to tap hope in evil and draw moral lessons from it.
The flower of evil is a wonderful flower that blooms in the transitional period when the great tradition has disappeared and the new tradition has not yet formed. It has elements of romanticism, symbolism and realism. Baudelaire became the last poet of French classical poetry and the first poet of modern poetry with the poem Flower of Evil. Because of his richness and complexity, he became the spiritual leader that many different schools competed for later. The Flower of Evil is a collection of poems, but it is not a collection of ordinary poems, but a book with strict logic, strict structure and perfection. The poems in Flowers of Evil are not arranged in chronological order, but belong to six groups of poems according to content and theme, each with its own title, among which melancholy and ideal are the most important. The arrangement of the six parts actually draws the trajectory of the conflict between melancholy and ideal.
The poet uses an English word spleen to express his mental pain, hoping to end his mental suffering and struggle by running away and traveling far away. So, he turned his eyes from the inner world to the outer material world and turned to Paris where he lived. What he saw and heard in the streets of Paris constitutes the second part of Paris. Paris is a portrayal of a naked industrial metropolis. In this part, the struggle between melancholy and ideal gives way to the struggle between evil and good. Paris in the poet's eyes is an ugly hell on earth full of hostility; Bullied beggars, lonely old people, blind people who are numb and silent, ugly and old prostitutes, patients who linger on, gamblers, thieves, zombies and so on. , have been overwhelmed by powerful evil forces. The poet can't find comfort in the spiritual world and the material world, so he has to anesthetize himself with alcohol, stimulate his illusion and build an artificial paradise. He seems to see the garbage collector intoxicated with his own glory and immersed in the illusion of being on cloud nine. The devil disguised as a beautiful woman came to seduce him, coquettish women winked at him, and lovers held glasses in their hands ... he galloped freely in the dream of losing the garden. However, the dreamland in drunkenness is not reliable after all. After waking up, he returned to the real hell from the artificial paradise. This is a place full of sin, but full of flowers. Flower of Evil is divided into six parts: melancholy and ideal, Paris scenery, wine, flower of evil, rebellion and death, among which melancholy and ideal are the most important, accounting for two-thirds of the book. In this part, the poet patiently and mercilessly describes and analyzes his double soul, showing his efforts to get rid of the double pain of spirit and body. It pursues beauty and purity, trying to realize its ideal in the world of beauty, but beauty is like a cold statue, out of reach; He sought love, but he was deceived by love again and again; He prayed to angels for happiness, youth and happiness, trying to get comfort from tobacco and music, but gloomy and ugly scenes and lingering sadness always hung over him, increasing his pain.
Baudelaire has a set of poetic theory, which is applied to Flowers of Evil. The first is synaesthesia. The sonnet of the same name points out that there is synaesthesia between different senses: "Smell, color and sound echo each other." Later, this poem made a concrete exposition, indicating that all feelings are interlinked. Among other poems, Baudelaire suggested that poetry should be associated with other arts (lighthouse, mask). Baudelaire believes that synaesthesia is a kind of "magic of association" and belongs to "hidden rules of creation", from which artists can go deep into a higher art palace. Hugo praised Baudelaire for "creating a new thriller".
He advocates the use of "all means contained in art", and he mainly uses symbolic means: expressing abstract thoughts with concrete images, which is rich, complex, profound and philosophical. In his works, time, beauty, death, accidents, shame, anger and hatred are all personified, even with symbolism. In order to capture a large number of images, poets need to use their imagination: "Imagination is the real mother." Baudelaire regards imagination as the mother of all kinds of talents, and thinks that imagination is the main quality of genius, and it can convey abstract spiritual phenomena and various concepts with concrete images. Flowers of Evil is Baudelaire's masterpiece, which also embodies his innovative spirit. One of the innovations is that he described the ugly phenomenon of big cities. In his works, the scenery in Paris is dark and mysterious, and it is the poor, the blind, prostitutes and even the ugly female corpse lying in the street that attracts the poet's attention. Baudelaire's description of ugliness and ugly things is of great aesthetic significance. He thinks there is beauty in ugliness. Contrary to the romantic view that nature and human nature are full of harmony and beauty, he advocates that "nature is ugly", natural things are "disgusting", evil is "innate", virtue is man-made and goodness is man-made; Evil exists in people's hearts just as ugliness exists in the center of the world. He thinks that to write ugliness, we should "discover the beauty in evil" and express the "spiritual turmoil in evil". Baudelaire often uses ugly images when describing people's mental state. Take Melancholy Four as an example, all the images in the poem are ugly: the pot cover, the black light, the damp prison, the timid bat, the rotten ceiling, the iron grating, the dirty spider, the spider web, the wandering ghost, the long hearse procession and the black flag. These disgusting, ugly and ominous images come one after another and fill the whole poem. They showed "mental turmoil". In a word, Baudelaire takes ugliness as beauty and turns ugliness into beauty, which is of innovative significance in aesthetics. This aesthetic view is one of the principles followed by modernist literature in the 20th century.
The second innovation is to express personal depressed psychology and write about the tragic fate of petty-bourgeois youth. It is unique to express this mentality of young people in poetry. Romantic poetry expresses the frustration of love, the loneliness of spirit and the sense of political loss, which is only the beginning in excavating people's deep consciousness. Baudelaire understands melancholy in a higher sense. He thinks that there is misfortune in typical beauty. Melancholy is the strongest voice to be expressed in Flowers of Evil. Judging from the whole collection of poems, the poet wrote about people's depressed situation in society. Melancholy haunts poets like the devil. Sadness is a morbid emotion caused by dissatisfaction with real life, and it also reflects that the younger generation of petty bourgeoisie is in a pessimistic and desperate state of mind because they can't find a way out. As the advertisements and comments in the first edition of Poems said, Flowers of Evil is "outlining the history of spiritual turmoil of modern youth" and "expressing the excitement and sadness of modern youth". Gorky said: "Baudelaire lived in evil, but loved good." Finally, he left some dark and vicious poems with cold and desperate breath to France and died. For these poems, people called him a madman before his death and a poet after his death. "
French writer Wei Erlun believes that Baudelaire's "profound originality" lies in the expression of modern people, and points out: "In my opinion, historians who study our times in the future must read this book seriously and devoutly in order not to reveal everything, because it is the essence of this century and a concentrated reflection of everything in this century."
After receiving the flowers of evil from Baudelaire during his exile in Gai Ensley Island, the poet Hugo suppressed his excitement and immediately wrote back: "I have received all your noble letters and wonderful books. Art without factions is like the sky, you have proved it. I admire your extraordinary talent. "