Illuminations

By Arthur Rimbaud

1875

First Published

4.33

Average Rating

123

Number of Pages

3H45M

Audio Length

The prose poems of the great French Symbolist, Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), have acquired enormous prestige among readers everywhere and have been a revolutionary influence on poetry in the twentieth century. They are offered here both in their original texts and in superb English translations by Louise Varèse. Mrs. Varèse first published her versions of Rimbaud’s Illuminations in 1946. Since then she has revised her work and has included two poems which in the interim have been reclassified as part of Illuminations. This edition also contains two other series of prose poems, which include two poems only recently discovered in France, together with an introduction in which Miss Varèse discusses the complicated ins and outs of Rimbaldien scholarship and the special qualities of Rimbaud’s writing. Rimbaud was indeed the most astonishing of French geniuses. Fired in childhood with an ambition to write, he gave up poetry before he was twenty-one. Yet he had already produced some of the finest examples of French verse. He is best known for A Season in Hell, but his other prose poems are no less remarkable. While he was working on them he spoke of his interest in hallucinations––"des vertiges, des silences, des nuits." These perceptions were caught by the poet in a beam of pellucid, and strangely active language which still lights up––now here, now there––unexplored aspects of experience and thought.

Avg Rating

4.33

Number of Ratings

13,465

5 STARS

54%

4 STARS

29%

3 STARS

12%

2 STARS

1 STARS

goodreads

Author

Arthur Rimbaud

Author · 24 books

Hallucinatory work of French poet Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud strongly influenced the surrealists. With known transgressive themes, he influenced modern literature and arts, prefiguring. He started writing at a very young age and excelled as a student but abandoned his formal education in his teenage years to run away to Paris amidst the Franco-Prussian war. During his late adolescence and early adulthood, he produced the bulk of his literary output. After assembling his last major work, Illuminations , Rimbaud completely stopped writing literature at age 20 years in 1874. A hectic, violent romantic relationship, which lasted nearly two years at times, with fellow poet Paul Verlaine engaged Rimbaud, a libertine, restless soul. After his retirement as a writer, he traveled extensively on three continents as a merchant and explorer until his death from cancer. As a poet, Rimbaud is well known for his contributions to symbolism and, among other works, for A Season in Hell , a precursor to modernist literature.