"Les philosophes: Le monde n’a pas d’âge. L’humanité se déplace, simplement."

Rimbaud est magnifique! ( )

I find reading about Rimbaud’s crazy life more interesting than his poetry - in particular, his torrid affair with Paul Verlaine, who was twenty years older, married, and had a child coming when it started. Rimbaud was arrogant, an “enfant terrible”, and he openly criticized literary men of the day; after a year or two he began to tire of Verlaine’s sentimentality as well. When he announced he was leaving, Verlaine shot at him in a drunken fit of rage and hit him in the wrist.

Rimbaud retreated to finish “A Season in Hell”, and in addition to the personal turmoil, it’s apparent that the absinthe and hashish inspired the work. He was snubbed artistically following the scandal, however, and in despair burned all his manuscripts. He stopped writing poetry at age nineteen and led a vagabond’s existence in Europe until dying at the age of 37.

I love the opening lines from “A Season in Hell”:
“Once if I remember well, my life was a feast where all hearts opened and all wine flowed.
One evening I seated Beauty on my knees. And I found her bitter. And I cursed her.”

As well as these lines from “The Drunken Boat”:
“True I have wept too much! Dawns are heartbreaking;
Cruel all moons and bitter the suns.
Drunk with love’s acrid torpors,
O let my keel burst! Let me go to the sea!” ( )

My father found a copy of this novel in a parking lot and gave it to me when I was sixteen. It had a crazy inscription in it that, at the time, meant more to me than Rimbaud's poetry. But as I've gotten older Rimbaud is a much better salve than a crazy guy who wanted his best friend to read more poetry. ( )