The Rambunctious Rimbaud

I find Henri Fantin-Latour’s painting of the poet more illuminating than the handful of of existing photos

I first became aware of poet Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) in my late teens, by way of his reputed influence on the Surrealists, Dylan Thomas, the Beats, Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, and Patti Smith. Through his intense, brief relationship (both artistic and romantic) with Paul Verlaine, he is associated with the Symbolists. His major works were published just around 150 years ago, A Season in Hell (1873) and Illuminations (1876). Astoundingly, after a dazzling outburst of creative production, Rimbaud voluntarily ended his literary career by age 20, apparently having said what he wanted to say. I’ve always taken this fact to be as remarkable as anything he ever wrote. Most of us are in the grip of something that never lets us go. Rimbaud possessed a voice most would kill for, but silenced it.

Rimbaud was the son of a French army officer, but raised by a strict controlling mother. He was steeped in Greek, Latin, and French verse from boyhood, and encouraged to write from a young age. But he possessed a rebellious streak. Camus called him “the poet of revolt — and the greatest”. As a teenager he began testing the limits of what he could get away with: he ran away, stole, drank to excess, frequented the Parisian resorts of Bohemia, took opium and hashish. His relationship with Verlaine nearly broke up the latter’s marriage. (In the end, Verlaine served two years in prison for wounding Rimbaud with a pistol). He was an all-around disreputable character, who never bathed, and was rude to everyone he met. Artistically, Rimbaud was on a quest to chart a course into the spiritual unknown through a “derangement of the senses” (a phrase he coined). He saw himself as a kind of prophet or seer. Dreams, madness, hallucination, and the irrational were his landscape. His poetry was a record of what he saw.

After handing off the manuscript of Illuminations and parting ways with Verlaine, Rimbaud became an international traveler and merchant, exploring remote regions of the world. He crossed the Alps on foot and then spent time in the East Indies, Egypt, Cyprus, Yemen, and Ethiopia, where he visited uncharted regions and made a fortune as an arms dealer. (He was not a pacifist. As a teen he had gone to the barricades with the Paris Commune; for a time he enlisted with the Dutch army, then later deserted). Meanwhile, back in France, his poetry began to be celebrated through the efforts of Verlaine. But he was living quite a different life by then. If he lived longer, perhaps he’d have returned to writing, but he was dead of bone cancer by age 37.

This is Paul Schmidt’s translation of “Adieu” which comes at the end of Seasons in Hell. Some have interpreted it as a glimpse into the thought process that led Rimbaud to pursuing “life after poetry”. Or, if you like, in his own terms, a glimpse into the future:

Autumn already! – But why regret the everlasting sun, if we are sworn to a search for divine brightness, – far from those who die as seasons turn.

Autumn. Our boat, risen out of a hanging fog, turns toward poverty’s harbor, the monstrous city, its sky stained with fire and mud. Ah! Those stinking rags, bread soaked with rain, drunkenness, and the thousands of loves who nailed me to the cross! Will there never, ever be an end to that ghoulish queen of a million dead souls and bodies and who will all be judged! I can see myself again, my skin corroded by dirt and disease, hair and armpits crawling with worms, and worms still larger crawling in my heart, stretched out among ageless, heartless, unknown figures… I could easily have died there… What a horrible memory! I detest poverty.

And I dread winter because it’s so cozy!

– Sometimes in the sky I see endless sandy shores covered with white rejoicing nations. A great golden ship, above me, flutters many-colored pennants in the morning breeze. I was the creator of every feast, every triumph, every drama. I tried to invent new flowers, new planets, new flesh, new languages. I thought I had acquired supernatural powers. Ha! I have to bury my imagination and my memories! What an end to a splendid career as an artist and storyteller!

I! I called myself a magician, an angel, free from all moral constraint, I am sent back to the soil to seek some obligation, to wrap gnarled reality in my arms! A peasant!

Am I deceived? Would Charity be the sister of death, for me?

Well, I shall ask forgiveness for having lived on lies. And that’s that.

But not one friendly hand! and where can I look for help?

¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

True, the new era is nothing if not harsh.

For I can say that I have gained a victory; the gnashing of teeth, the hissing of hellfire, the stinking sighs subside. All my monstrous memories are fading. My last longings depart, – jealousy of beggars, bandits, friends of death, all those that the world passed by. – Damned souls, if I were to take vengeance!

One must be absolutely modern.

Never mind hymns of thanksgiving: hold on to a step once taken. A hard night! Dried blood smokes on my face, and nothing lies behind me but that repulsive little tree!… The battle for the soul is as brutal as the battles of men; but the sight of justice is the pleasure of God alone.

Yet this is the watch by night. Let us all accept new strength, and real tenderness. And at dawn, armed with glowing patience, we will enter the cities of glory.

Why did I talk about a friendly hand! My great advantage is that I can laugh at old love affairs full of falsehood, and stamp with shame such deceitful couples, – I went through women’s Hell over there; – and I will be able now to possess the truth within one body and one soul.