A Season in Hell / The Illuminations

A Season in Hell & Illuminations was a book that I was introduced to in the dead of night. I was handed the text and asked to read and, being me, proceeded to open to random pages and read aloud in an impassioned tone. When read like this - in the middle of the night with all of its magic and attractions, the text is like fire.

Rimbaud's words alternatively scorch and caress, they raise up the most enlivened fancies and play out dark fantasies unlike anything else one could ever be exposed to. Rimbaud becomes the Father of all that is brutal and metal, he becomes the embodiment of debauchery and dark poetry; in this light he is pure electricity, and being that, strange, mysterious, and wonderful.

In the light of day, his prose loses some show more of that intensity. He becomes something tamer, better understood. In light of the preface, Rimbaud runs the risk of even failing to be purely Rimbaudian - he is human, after all, and simply a man, behind a desk, writing... I feel he loses his allure in this light, rather than gains it. Yes, he is human, but the legend is so much more fun and eagerly traced...?

I struggle between giving this novel three stars or four - in the right conditions, he is truly incredible and quite the beloved read. For now, I shall settle with three, and perhaps increase upon a later date. show less

if the term 'life-changing experience' wasn't over-used, I would use it here. This is everything I look for in poetry: such introspection that the madcap behind the poetry knew the only way to escape his mental torture was to stop poetry all together. Rimbaud's walloping world through drudgery, lust, manure, and all the love only of a wanderer of epic proportions could hold is poetic alienation at its finest moments.

Rimbaud skillfully draws the reader into the world of damnation, the world of the self. He confronts the essence of nihilism and self-loathing in this remarkable poem, composed at the astonishing age of 19. Like Dante, Milton, and perhaps Pound, Rimbaud is able to bend the language to engage the reader in a transcendental understanding of the human condition and psyche.

There are poems in here of promethean beauty that prefigure the rebellious spirit of French artistic bohemians in the dawn of the 20th century:

"Long ago, if my memory serves, life was a feast where every heart was open, where every wined flowed. One night, I sat Beauty on my knee.-And I found her bitter.-And I
hurt her.
I took arms against justice.
I fled, entrusting my show more treasure to you, o witches, o misery, o hate.
I snuffled any hint of human hope from my consciousness. I made the muffled leap of a wild beast into any hint of joy, to strangle it. (3).

This is an altogether excellent edition of Season and Hell and Illuminations, with a lucid and stark translation by Wyatt Mason. The Modern English library has also included the original French text, complete with a chronology of the poet's life and comprehensive facsimiles of the original texts for true bookworms who want to look at Rimbaud's corrections. show less

If I had to name a favorite poet, it would probably be Arthur Rimbaud. His work is rich with imagery and meaning, each poem holding an entire story. Even better is the way this collection works as a whole, reading like an epic saga. It's a rare thing when I enjoy sitting down to read poetry, but I would happily return to this book time and again.

The only book I actually enjoyed from my 19th Century French Literature class in college.

Intro by Paul Claudel.
one of the rare French lit books I kept from my college days