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Arthur Rimbaud

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Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (or in French ) (October 20, 1854 – November 10, 1891) was a French poet, born in Charleville. His influence on modern literature, music and art has been enduring and pervasive. He produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an enfant Shakespeare"—and gave up creative writing altogether before he reached 21. He remained a prolific letter-writer all his life. Rimbaud was a restless soul, travelling extensively on three continents before his premature death from cancer less than a month after his 37th birthday.

Life

Early years (1854–1871)

Arthur Rimbaud was born into the provincial middle class of Charleville (now part of Charleville-Mézières) in the Ardennes département in northeastern France. He was the second child of Vitalie Rimbaud (née Cuif) and Captain Frédéric, who fought in the conquest of Algeria and was awarded the Légion d'honneur. Soon after the couple had their fifth child (Frédéric, Arthur, Victorine (who died a month after she was born), Vitalie and Isabelle), their father left the family. As well as growing up without a father, it is evident through Rimbaud's writing that he never felt loved by his mother. As a boy he was a restless but brilliant student. By the age of fifteen he had won many prizes and composed original verses and dialogues in Latin. In 1870 his teacher Georges Izambard became Rimbaud's literary mentor and his original French verses began to improve rapidly.

He frequently ran away from home and may have briefly joined the Paris Commune of 1871, which he portrayed in his poem fr:L’Orgie parisienne, ("The Parisian Orgy" or "Paris Repopulates"). He may have been raped by drunken Communard soldiers (as his poem fr:Le Cœur volé ("The Tortured Heart") perhaps suggests). By this time he had become an anarchist, started drinking and amused himself by shocking the local bourgeoisie with his shabby dress and long hair. At the same time he wrote to Izambard and Paul Demeny about his method for attaining poetical transcendence or visionary power through a "long, intimidating, immense and rational derangement of all the senses" (Les lettres du Voyant ["The Letters of the Seer"]).

Life with Verlaine (1871–1875)

He returned to Paris in late September 1871 at the invitation of the eminent Symbolist poet Paul Verlaine (after Rimbaud had sent him a letter containing several samples of his work) and resided briefly in Verlaine's home. Verlaine, who was married, appears to have fallen in love with the sullen, blue-eyed, light-brown-haired adolescent. During their time together they led a wild, vagabond-like life spiced by absinthe and hashish. They scandalized the Parisian literary coterie on account of the outrageous behaviour of Rimbaud, the archetypical enfant terrible, who throughout this period continued to write strikingly visionary verse.

Rimbaud's and Verlaine's stormy relationship took them to London in September 1872, Verlaine abandoning his wife and infant son (both of whom he had abused in his alcoholic rages). Rimbaud and Verlaine lived in considerable poverty, in Bloomsbury and in Camden Town, scraping a living from teaching and an allowance from Verlaine's mother. Rimbaud spent his days in the Reading Room of the British Museum where "heating, lighting, pens and ink were free."

By late June 1873, Verlaine had had enough and soon afterwards returned to Paris, where he found Rimbaud's absence hard to bear. On July 8, he telegraphed Rimbaud, instructing him to come to the Hotel Liège in Brussels; Rimbaud complied immediately. The Brussels reunion went badly; one argument led to another and Verlaine drank almost continuously. On the morning of 10 July, Verlaine bought a revolver and ammunition. That afternoon, "in a drunken rage," Verlaine fired two shots at Rimbaud, one of them wounding the 18-year-old in the left wrist.

Rimbaud considered the wound superficial and at first did not have Verlaine charged. After this, Verlaine and his mother accompanied Rimbaud to a Brussels train station where Verlaine "behaved as if he were insane." This made Rimbaud "fear that he might give himself over to new excesses," so he turned and ran away. In his words, "it was then I [Rimbaud] begged a police officer to arrest him [Verlaine]." Verlaine was arrested for attempted murder and subjected to a humiliating medico-legal examination. He was also interrogated about his intimate correspondence with Rimbaud and about his wife's accusations about the nature of his relationship with Rimbaud. Rimbaud eventually withdrew the complaint, but the judge sentenced Verlaine to two years in prison.

Rimbaud returned home to Charleville and completed his Une Saison en Enfer ("A Season in Hell") in prose, widely regarded as one of the pioneering instances of modern Symbolist writing and a description of that drôle de ménage ("domestic farce") life with Verlaine, his frère pitoyable ("pitiful brother") and vierge folle ("mad virgin") to whom he was l'époux infernal ("the infernal groom"). In 1874 he returned to London with the poet Germain Nouveau and put together his groundbreaking Illuminations.

Travels (1875-1880)

Rimbaud and Verlaine met for the last time in March 1875, in Stuttgart, Germany, after Verlaine's release from prison and his conversion to Catholicism. By then Rimbaud had given up writing and decided on a steady, working life; some speculate he was fed up with his former wild living, while others suggest he sought to become rich and independent to afford living one day as a carefree poet and man of letters. He continued to travel extensively in Europe, mostly on foot.

In May 1876 he enlisted as a soldier in the Dutch Colonial Army to travel free of charge to Java (Indonesia) where he promptly deserted, returning to France by ship. At the official residence of the mayor of Salatiga, a small city 46 km south of Semarang, capital of Central Java Province, there is a marble plaque stating that Rimbaud was once settled at the city.

In December 1878, Rimbaud arrived in Larnaca, Cyprus, where he worked for a construction company as a foreman at a stone quarry. In May of the following year he had to leave Cyprus because of a fever, which on his return to France was diagnosed as typhoid fever.

Ethiopia (1880–1891)

In 1880 Rimbaud finally settled in Aden as a main employee in the Bardey agency. He took several native women as lovers and for a while he lived with an Ethiopian mistress. In 1884 he left his job at Bardey's to become a merchant on his own account in Harar, Ethiopia. Rimbaud's commercial dealings notably included coffee and weapons. In this period, Rimbaud struck up a very close friendship with the Governor of Harar, Ras Makonnen, father of future Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie.

Death (1891)

In early 1891, Rimbaud developed right knee synovitis and subsequently a carcinoma in his right knee and the state of his health forced him to leave for France on May 9, 1891. Rimbaud was admitted to hospital in Marseille and his leg was amputated on May 27. After a short stay at his family house he attempted to travel back to Africa, but on the way his medical condition deteriorated and he was readmitted to the same hospital in Marseille where his surgery had been carried out, and spent some time there in great pain, attended by his sister Isabelle. Rimbaud died in Marseille on November 10, 1891, at the age of 37, and his body was interred in the family vault at Charleville.

Works

Themes

Critical reception

Publication history

Une Saison en Enfer (1873) Published by Rimbaud himself as a small booklet. "As soon as the work was published and a few copies distributed, he lost all interest and seemed to have forgotten it..

Influences

Cultural legacy

References

Notes

English translations

Secondary sources

  • Whidden, S (ed) & Fowlie, W (trans). 2005. Rimbaud: Complete Works, Selected Letters. University of Chicago Press.

Further reading

  • Œuvres complètes, correspondance, d'Arthur Rimbaud de Louis Forestier — Éd. Robert Laffont, collection Bouquins - 1998, 607 pages ;
  • Un ardennais nommé Rimbaud de Yann Hureaux — Éd. La Nuée Bleu / L'Ardennais - 217 pages ;
  • Arthur Rimbaud, de Jean-Luc Steinmetz — Éd. Tallandier - 486 pages ;
  • Arthur Rimbaud, by Benjamin Ivry - Absolute Press - 1998 - 186 pages ;
  • Rimbaud Ailleurs, photographies contemporaines et entretiens de Jean-Hugues Berrou, textes et documents anciens de Jean-Jacques Lefrère et Pierre Leroy, avec la collaboration de Maurice Culot — Éd. Fayard - 303 pages.
  • Arthur Rimbaud 'Déposition de Rimbaud devant le juge d'instruction (12 July 1873)'.
  • Félicien Champsaur, Dinah Samuel (1882), a roman à clé in which Rimbaud is said to be caricatured.

See also

External links



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