Baudelaire on Beauty, Love, Prostitutes and Modernity In Baudelaire, beauty is horror, and horror, beauty. The source, or origin, of beauty doesnât matter. Beauty is what beauty does, and nothing can save us from its devouring force. The dark power of Baudelaireâs poetry in Le Fleur Du Mal/ The Flowers of Evil is best experienced when it disturbs and is difficult to access. Photo: anncapictures/Pixabay In his celebrated essay on Charles Baudelaire, The Aesthetic Dignity of the âFleurs du Mal’, the philologist, Erich Auerbach ended with a brilliant observation while addressing âthe horror of Les Fleur Du Malâ. Auerbach had âa word⦠in defense of certain critics who have resolutely rejected the book. Not all of them, but a few, had a better understanding of it than many contemporary and subsequent admirers. A statement of horror is better understood by those who feel the horror in their bones, even if they react against it, than by those who express nothing but their rapture over the artistic achievement.â