Throughout the evolution of the goth subculture, classic romantic, Gothic and horror literature has played a significant role. E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822), Edgar Allan Poe[31] (1809–1849), Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867),[31] H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937), and other tragic and romantic writers have become as emblematic of the subculture[32] as the use of dark eyeliner or dressing in black. Baudelaire, in fact, in his preface to Les Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) penned lines that could serve as a sort of goth malediction:[33]