It might surprise readers who know only Baudelaire's dubious reputation as a sadist, a blasphemer, an addict or a poet of depravity that his literary and critical works are motivated in large part by a passionate ethical commitment. While his masterpiece, Les Fleurs du Mal, appears to overturn the conventional hierarchy of good and bad, his poetry does not literally celebrate criminals or prostitutes, nor does he truly condescend to women, the poor and the infirm. A closer look reveals that the poet frequently demonstrates compassion for people in the corrupt city of Paris, which he calls 'the gigantic whore' ['l'énorme catin' (OC I 191)]. The rebellious and afflicted are Baudelaire's beloved brothers and sisters, but he cannot state so directly.

In his essay on Edgar Allan Poe, Baudelaire bluntly denounces 'the great heresy' ['la grande hérésie'] of didacticism, art in the service of 'direct usefulness' ['l'utilité directe' (OC II 263)]. He rejects the idealised characters and moralistic lessons of the great Romantic poet and novelist Victor Hugo, while admiring his imagination (OC II 217-24).