On the genre nature of Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire

The article deals with the issue of genre specificity of the collection of poetry by Charles Baudelaire Flowers of Evil, namely the genre of an anthology or florilegium. The novelty of the article is due to the fact that Baudelaire’s collection of poetry has not attracted the attention of researchers in terms of its belonging to the flo-rilegium genre, which is close to the genre of an encyclopedia or dictionary in terms of collecting certain information and systematizing it. However, Baudelaire himself, in an extended dedication to Theophile Gautier, calls Flowers of Evil a “dictionary of melancholy”. The study briefly overviews the history of florilegiums: from Greek anthologies (Garlands by Meleager of Gadara), the first medieval florilegiums and “flowers of the life of the saints” to innovative anthologies of the 19th century. A classification of florilegiums is given. Using historical-comparative and analytical methods of studying the text, the author of the article comes to the conclusion that Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil is a multi-level florilegium (from anthological and botanical to musical). In addition, the collection also contains an internal florilegium (the “Flowers of Evil” cycle), which turns the large anthology of Flowers of Evil into the misanabim or box genre. The author of the article concludes that, focusing on the vices of his era, Baudelaire creates a new type of florilegium, called in this article “antiflorilegium”, which causes multiple interpretations and imitations in subsequent literature (Zola, Huysmans, Rimbaud, Mirbeau, Maeterlinck, and others). The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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