Arthur Rimbaud

Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (20 October 1854 - 10 November 1891) was a French poet.

Drawing of Rimbaud by Paul Verlaine (circa 1872). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Arthur Rimbaud
Born	Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud October 20, 1854 Charleville, France
Died	November 10, 1891 (aged 37) Marseille, France
Occupation	Poet
Nationality	French
Literary movement	Symbolism, decadent movement
Influences Charles Baudelaire, Victor Hugo, Paul Verlaine
Influenced Bob Kaufman, J. Slauerhoff, Henry Miller, Allen Ginsberg, Dylan Thomas, William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, Richey Edwards

Life

Overview

Rimbaud produced his best known works while still in his late teens – Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare" – and gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent movement, Rimbaud influenced modern literature, music and art.

Journalist Raymond Sokolov wrote in Newsday: "Arthur Rimbaud was a disreputable, mean, ruthless, perverse, hateful wretch. He was also one of the greatest poets who ever lived."

Family & childhood

Arthur Rimbaud was born into the provincial middle class town of Charleville in the Ardennes departement in northeastern France. He was the 2nd child of a career soldier, Frédéric Rimbaud, and his wife Marie-Catherine-Vitalie Cuif. His father, a Burgundian of Provencal extraction, rose from a simple recruit to the rank of captain, and spent the greater part of his army years in foreign service. Captain Rimbaud fought in the conquest of Algeria and was awarded the Legion d'honneur. The Cuif family was a solidly established Ardennais family, but they were plagued by unstable and bohemian characters; two of Arthur Rimbaud's uncles from his mother's side were alcoholics.

Captain Rimbaud and Vitalie married in February 1853; in the following November came the birth of their 1st child, Jean-Nicolas-Frederick. The next year, on 20 October 1854, Jean-Nicolas-Arthur was born. 3 more children, Victorine (who died a month after she was born), Vitalie and Isabelle, followed.

Arthur Rimbaud's infancy is said to have been prodigious; a common myth states that soon after his birth he had rolled onto the floor from a cushion where his nurse had put him only to begin crawling toward the door. In a more realistic retelling of his childhood, Mme Rimbaud recalled when after putting her second son in the care of a nurse in Gespunsart, supplying clean linen and a cradle for him, she returned to find the nurse's child sitting in the crib wearing the clothes meant for Arthur. Meanwhile, the dirty and naked child that was her own was happily playing in an old salt chest.

Soon after the birth of Isabelle, when Arthur was 6 years old, Captain Rimbaud left to join his regiment in Cambrai and never returned. He had become irritated by domesticity and the presence of the children while Madame Rimbaud was determined to rear and educate her family by herself. The young Arthur Rimbaud was therefore under the complete governance of his mother, a strict Catholic, who raised him and his older brother and younger sisters in a stern and religious household. After her husband's departure, Mme Rimbaud became known as "Widow Rimbaud".

Education

Rimbaud, aged 11, on the day of his First Communion. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Fearing that her children were spending too much time with and being over-influenced by neighboring children of the poor, Mme Rimbaud moved her family to the Cours d'Orleans in 1862. This was a better neighborhood, and whereas the boys were previously taught at home by their mother, they were then sent, at the ages of 9 and 8, to the Pension Rossat. For the 5 years that they attended school, however, their formidable mother still imposed her will upon them, pushing for scholastic success. She would punish her sons by making them learn a hundred lines of Latin verse by heart and if they gave an inaccurate recitation, she would deprive them of meals. When Arthur was 9, he wrote a 700-word essay objecting to his having to learn Latin in school. Vigorously condemning a classical education as a mere gateway to a salaried position, Rimbaud wrote repeatedly, "I will be a rentier (one who lives off his assets)". He disliked schoolwork and his mother's continued control and constant supervision; the children were not allowed to leave their mother's sight, and, until the boys were 16 and 15 respectively, she would walk them home from the school grounds.

As a boy, Arthur was small, brown-haired and pale with what a childhood friend called "eyes of pale blue irradiated with dark blue - the loveliest eyes I've seen". When he was 11, Arthur had his 1st Communion; despite his intellectual and individualistic nature, he was an ardent Catholic like his mother. For this reason he was called "sale petit Cagot" ("snotty little prig") by his fellow schoolboys. He and his brother were sent to the College de Charleville for school that same year. Until this time, his reading was confined almost entirely to the Bible, but he also enjoyed fairy tales and stories of adventure such as the novels of James Fenimore Cooper and Gustave Aimard. He became a highly successful student and was head of his class in all subjects but sciences and mathematics. Many of his schoolmasters remarked upon the young student's ability to absorb great quantities of material. In 1869 he won eight first prizes in the school, including the prize for Religious Education, and in 1870 he won 7 firsts.

When he had reached the 3rd class, Mme Rimbaud, hoping for a brilliant scholastic future for her 2nd son, hired a tutor, Father Ariste Lhéritier, for private lessons. Lhéritier succeeded in sparking the young scholar's love of Greek and Latin as well as French classical literature. He was also the 1st person to encourage the boy to write original verse in both French and Latin. Rimbaud's earliest poem to appear in print was "Les Etrennes des orphelins" ("The Orphans' New Year's Gift"), which was published in the 2 January 1870 issue of Revue pour tous.

2 weeks after his poem was printed, a new teacher named Georges Izambard arrived at the College de Charleville. Izambard became Rimbaud's literary mentor and soon a close accord formed between professor and student and Rimbaud for a short time saw Izambard as a kind of older brother figure. At the age of fifteen, Rimbaud was showing maturity as a poet; the earliest poem he showed Izambard, "Ophelie", would later be included in anthologies as among Rimbaud's best poems. When the Franco-Prussian War broke out, Izambard left Charleville and Rimbaud became despondent. He ran away to Paris with no money for his ticket and was subsequently arrested and imprisoned for a week. After returning home, Rimbaud ran away again to escape his mother's wrath.

From late October 1870, Rimbaud's behavior became outwardly provocative; he drank alcohol, spoke rudely, composed scatological poems, stole books from local shops, and abandoned his hitherto characteristically neat appearance by allowing his hair to grow long. At the same time he wrote to Izambard about his method for attaining poetical transcendence or visionary power through a "long, intimidating, immense and rational derangement of all the senses. The sufferings are enormous, but one must be strong, be born a poet, and I have recognized myself as a poet." It is rumored that he briefly joined the Paris Commune of 1871, which he portrayed in his poem "L'orgie parisienne; ou, Paris se repeuple" ("The Parisian Orgy; or, Paris Repopulates"). Another poem, "Le coeur vole" ("The Stolen Heart"), is often interpreted as a description of him being raped by drunken Communard soldiers, but this is unlikely since Rimbaud continued to support the Communards and wrote poems sympathetic to their aims.

Life with Verlaine

Etienne Carjat, Portrait of Rimbaud at the age of 17, 1872. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Rimbaud was encouraged by his friend, office employee Charles Auguste Bretagne, to write to Paul Verlaine, an eminent Symbolist poet, after letters to other poets failed to garner replies. Taking his advice, Rimbaud sent Verlaine two letters containing several of his poems, including the hypnotic, gradually shocking "Le Dormeur du Val" (The Sleeper in the Valley), in which certain facets of Nature are depicted and called upon to comfort an apparently sleeping soldier. Verlaine, who was intrigued by Rimbaud, sent a reply that stated, "Come, dear great soul. We await you; we desire you" along with a one-way ticket to Paris. Rimbaud arrived in late September 1871 at Verlaine's invitation and resided briefly in Verlaine's home. Verlaine, who was married to the 17-year-old and pregnant Mathilde Mauté, had recently left his job and taken up drinking. In later published recollections, Verlaine described Rimbaud at the age of 17 as having "the real head of a child, chubby and fresh, on a big, bony rather clumsy body of a still-growing adolescent, and whose voice, with a very strong Ardennes accent, that was almost a dialect, had highs and lows as if it were breaking."

Rimbaud and Verlaine began a short and torrid affair. Whereas Verlaine had likely engaged in prior homosexual experiences, it remains uncertain whether the relationship with Verlaine was Rimbaud's eariest. 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. The stormy relationship between Rimbaud and Verlaine eventually brought them to London in September 1872, a period about which Rimbaud would later express regret. During this time, Verlaine abandoned 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 mostly from teaching, in addition to 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." The relationship between the two poets grew increasingly bitter.

Verlaine and Rimbaud - detail of Coin de table by Henri Fantin-Latour (1836-1904), 1872. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

By late June 1873, Verlaine grew frustrated with the relationship and returned to Paris, where he quickly began to mourn Rimbaud's absence. On 8 July, he telegraphed Rimbaud, instructing him to come to the Hotel Liege in Brussels; Rimbaud complied at once. The Brussels reunion went badly: they argued continuously and Verlaine took refuge in heavy drinking. 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 dismissed the wound as superficial, and did not initially seek to file charges against Verlaine. But shortly after the shooting, Verlaine (and his mother) accompanied Rimbaud to a Brussels railway station, where Verlaine "behaved as if he were insane." His bizarre behavior induced Rimbaud to "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 with regard to both his intimate correspondence with Rimbaud and his wife's accusations about the nature of his relationship with Rimbaud. Rimbaud eventually withdrew the complaint, but the judge nonetheless sentenced Verlaine to two years in prison.

Rimbaud returned home to Charleville and completed his prose work Une Saison en Enfer ("A Season in Hell") - still widely regarded as one of the pioneering examples of modern Symbolist writing - which made various allusions to his life with Verlaine, described as a drole de menage ("domestic farce") with his frere 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 poet Germain Nouveau and put together his groundbreaking Illuminations.

Travels 1875-1880

File:Rimbaud in Harar.jpg

Rimbaud (self-portrait) in Harar in 1883.

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.(Citation needed) 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 in the Dutch East Indies (now 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.

Abyssinia 1880-1891

In 1880 Rimbaud finally settled in Aden, Yemen as a main employee in the Bardey agency. 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

Rimbaud's grave in Charleville. The inscription reads simply Priez pour lui ("Pray for him"). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

In February 1891, Rimbaud developed what he initially thought was arthritis in his right knee. It failed to respond to treatment and became agonizingly painful, and by March the state of his health forced him to prepare to return to France for treatment. In Aden, Rimbaud consulted a British doctor who mistakenly diagnosed tubercular synovitis and recommended immediate amputation. Rimbaud delayed until 9 May to set his financial affairs in order before catching the boat back to France. On arrival, he was admitted to hospital - the Hopital de la Conception, in Marselle - where his right leg was amputated on 27 May. The post-operative diagnosis was cancer.

After a short stay at his family home in Charleville, he attempted to travel back to Africa, but on the way his health deteriorated and he was readmitted to the same hospital in Marseille where the amputation had been performed, and spent some time there in great pain, attended by his sister Isabelle. Rimbaud died in Marseille on 10 November 1891, at the age of 37. He is buried in Charleville-Mezieres Cemetery.

Writing

In May 1871 - before his first trip to Paris - Rimbaud wrote 2 letters (commonly called the Lettres du voyant) explaining his poetic philosophy. The 1st was written May 13 to Izambard, in which Rimbaud explained:

Maintenant, je m'encrapule le plus possible. Pourquoi? Je veux être poète, et je travaille à me rendre voyant : vous ne comprendrez pas du tout, et je ne saurais presque vous expliquer. Il s'agit d'arriver à l'inconnu par le dérèglement de tous les sens. Les souffrances sont énormes, mais il faut être fort, être né poète, et je me suis reconnu poète. Ce n'est pas du tout ma faute.

I'm now making myself as scummy as I can. Why? I want to be a poet, and I'm working at turning myself into a seer. You won't understand any of this, and I'm almost incapable of explaining it to you. The idea is to reach the unknown by the derangement of all the senses. It involves enormous suffering, but one must be strong and be a born poet. It's really not my fault.

Rimbaud said much the same in his 2d letter, often called the Lettre du voyant ("Letter of the Seer"). Written May 15 to his friend Paul Demeny, the letter expounded his revolutionary theories about poetry and life, while also denouncing most poets that preceded him. Wishing for new poetic forms and ideas, he wrote:

Je dis qu’il faut être voyant, se faire voyant. Le Poète se fait voyant par un long, immense et raisonné dérèglement de tous les sens. Toutes les formes d'amour, de souffrance, de folie; il cherche lui-même, il épuise en lui tous les poisons, pour n'en garder que les quintessences. Ineffable torture où il a besoin de toute la foi, de toute la force surhumaine, où il devient entre tous le grand malade, le grand criminel, le grand maudit, – et le suprême Savant! – Car il arrive à l'inconnu! Puisqu'il a cultivé son âme, déjà riche, plus qu'aucun! Il arrive à l'inconnu, et quand, affolé, il finirait par perdre l'intelligence de ses visions, il les a vues!

I say that one must be a seer, make oneself a seer. The poet makes himself a seer by a long, prodigious, and rational disordering of all the senses. Every form of love, of suffering, of madness; he searches himself, he consumes all the poisons in him, and keeps only their quintessences. This is an unspeakable torture during which he needs all his faith and superhuman strength, and during which he becomes the great patient, the great criminal, the great accursed – and the great learned one! – among men. – For he arrives at the unknown! Because he has cultivated his own soul – which was rich to begin with – more than any other man! He reaches the unknown; and even if, crazed, he ends up by losing the understanding of his visions, at least he has seen them!

Rimbaud expounded the same ideas in his poem, "Le bateau ivre" ("The Drunken Boat"). This hundred-line poem tells the tale of a boat that breaks free of human society when its handlers are killed by "Redskins" (Peaux-Rouges). At first thinking that it drifts where it pleases, it soon realizes that it is being guided by and to the "poem of the sea". It sees visions both magnificent ("the blue and yellow of singing phosphorescence", "eveil jaune et bleu des phosphores chanteurs",) and disgusting ("nets where a whole Leviathan was rotting" "nasses / Ou pourrit dans les joncs tout un Leviathan). It ends floating and washed clean, wishing only to sink and become 1 with the sea.

Archibald MacLeish has commented on this poem: "Anyone who doubts that poetry can say what prose cannot has only to read the so-called Lettres du Voyant and 'Bateau Ivre' together. What is pretentious and adolescent in the Lettres is true in the poem — unanswerably true."

Rimbaud's poetry influenced the Symbolists, Dadaists and Surrealists, and later writers adopted not only some of his themes, but also his inventive use of form and language. French poet Paul Valery stated that "all known literature is written in the language of common sense — except Rimbaud's."

Recognition

Musée Rimbaud, Charleville, 2009. Photo by Havang (nl). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Rimbaud's poetry, as well as his life, made an indelible impression on 20th-century writers, musicians and artists. Pablo Picasso, Dylan Thomas, Allen Ginsberg, Vladimir Nabokov, Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Giannina Braschi, and Jim Morrison have been influenced by his poetry and life.

In popular culture

• Canadian musician Tom Cochrane with his band Red Rider wrote a song about Rimbaud entitled "White Hot", included on their 1980 "Don't Fight It" album. The song peaked at #20 on the Canadian RPM charts and #48 on the US Hot 100 charts.
• Elizabeth Hand - In her 2012 book Radiant Days, Hand fashions a young Rimbaud as one of her time-travelling protagonists.
• Courtney Love - In her book Dirty Blonde, a collection of her diaries, Courtney has a pasted picture of Rimbaud among the pages.
• Larrikin Love - Their 2005 single "Happy As Annie" takes its image of a corpse being mistaken for a sleeping person from Rimbaud's poem "Asleep In The Valley."
• The 1995 biographical film Total Eclipse depicts Leonardo DiCaprio as Rimbaud and David Thewlis as Paul Verlaine.

Publications

French

Poetry

• Une Saison en enfer. Brussels: Alliance typographique [M.-J. Poot], 1873.
• "Voyelles," "Oraison du soir," "Les Assis," "Les Effarés," "Les Chercheusers de poux," and "le Bateau ivre," in Paul Verlaine,Les Poètes Maudits: Tristan Corbière; Arthur Rimbaud; Stéphane Mallarmé. Paris: Léon Vanier, 1884.
• Les Illuminations (edited by Paul Verlaine). Paris: Publications de "la Vogue," 1886.
  • also published in Rimbaud's Illuminations: A study in angelism; with a new translation and the French text of the poems (edited by Wallace Fowlie). London: Harvill Press, 1953; New York: Grove, 1953.
• Poésies complètes (edited by Paul Verlaine). Paris: Léon Vanier, 1895.
• Les mains de Jeanne-Marie (edited by Berrichon). Paris: Au sans pareil, 1919.
• Illuminations (edited by Albert Py). Geneva: Droz, 1967.
• Poésies: Edition critique (edited by Marcel A. Ruff). Paris: A.-G. Nizet, 1978.

Collections

• Oeuvres de Jean-Arthur Rimbaud (edited by Paterne Berrichon & Ernest Delahaye). Paris: Société du Mercure de France, 1898
  • revised and enlarged as Oeuvres de Jean-Arthur Rimbaud: Vers et proses, revues sur les manuscrits originaux et les premières éditions, mises en ordre et annotées. Paris: Société du Mercure de France, 1916.
• Oeuvres (edited by Robert Goffin). New York: Brentano, 1943.
• Ouevres (edited by Suzanne Bernard). Paris: Garnier frères, 1960.
• Oeuvres complètes (edited by Antoine Adam). Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1972.
• Oeuvres (edited by Suzanne Bernard & André Guyaux). Paris: Garnier, 1987.

Letters

• Lettres de Jean-Arthur Rimbaud: Egypte, Arabie, Ethiopie (edited by Paterne Berrichon) .Paris: Société du Mercure de France, 1899.
• Arthur Rimbaud: A Douai et à Charleville: Lettres et écrits inédits (edited by Georges Izambard). Paris: Kra, 1927.
• Correspondance inédite, 1870-1875 (edited by Roger Gilbert-Lecomte). Paris: Aux éditions des cahiers libres, 1929.
• Lettres de la vie littéraire, 1870-1875 (edited by Jean-Marie Carré). Paris: Gallimard, Editions de la Nouvelle revue française, 1931.
• Correspondance de Rimbaud (edited by Jacques Lefrere). Paris: Fayard, 2007.

English translation

Poetry

• "A Season in Hell," translated by J.S. Watson Jr.; "The Drunken Boat," translated by Lionel Abel; "Vowel Sonnet," translated by Joseph T. Shipley; and "The Seekers of Lice," translated by T. Sturge Moore, in A Season in Hell: The life of Arthur Rimbaud, by Jean Marie Carré (translated by Hannah and Matthew Josephson). New York: Macaulay, 1931, pp. 273-312.
• A Season in Hell (translated by George Frederic Lees). London: Fortune Press, 1932; Paris: Palais-Royal Book Shop, 1932.
• Prose Poems from Les Illuminations (translated by Helen Rootham). London: Faber, 1932; Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1943.
• "Drunken Ship" (translated by Leonard Bacon), in his Dream and Action. New York & London: Harper, 1934, pp. 65-71.
• A Season in Hell (translated by Delmore Schwartz) (Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1939.
• Some Poems of Rimbaud (translated by Lionel Abel). New York: Exiles' Press, 1939.
• A Drunken Boat (translated by Clark Mills). Ithaca, NY: Voyages, 1941.
• Selected Verse Poems (translated by Norman Cameron). London: Hogarth Press, 1942.
• Prose Poems from The Illuminations (translated by Louise Varèse). New York: New Directions, 1946.
• Four Poems: The problems of translation (translated by Ben Belitt). Denver: Swallow Press, 1947; London: Sylvan Press, 1948. ("Poets at Seven," "First Communion," "The Drunken Boat," & "Memory").
• A Season in Hell (translated by Norman Cameron) London: Lehmann, 1949.
• The Drunken Boat: Thirty-six Poems (translated by Brian Hill). London: Hart-Davis, 1952.
• A Season in Hell: Revised English translation (translated by Louise Varèse). Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1952.
• "Illuminations" (translated by Wallace Fowlie) in Rimbaud's Illuminations: A study in angelism; with a New Translation and the French Text of the Poems (edited by Fowlie). London: Harvill Press, 1953; New York: Grove, 1953.
• Collected Poems (translated by Oliver Bernard). Baltimore: Penguin, 1962; Harmondsworth, U.K. & New York: Viking Penguin, 1986.
• Drunken Boat: A translation of Arthur Rimbaud's poem Le Bateau ivre (translated by Samuel Beckett, edited by James Knowlson & Felix Leakey). Reading, U.K.: Whiteknights Press, 1976.
• A Season In Hell: A new American translation (translated by Bertrand Mathieu). Cambridge, MA: Pomegranate Press, 1976.
• Illuminations: A new American translation (translated by Bertrand Mathieu). Brockport, NY: BOA Editions, 1979.
• Collected Poems (edited by Martin Sorrell). Oxford, UK, & New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
• The Drunken Boat, and other poems (translated by L. Eric Greinke). Rockford, MI: Presa Press, 2007.

Collections

• Complete Works, Selected Letters: A bilingual edition (translated & edited by Wallace Fowlie). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965
  • (updated by Seth Whidden). Chicago: University of Chicago Presa, 2005. ISBN 0-226-71977-1
• Complete Works (translated by Paul Schmidt). New York: Harper, 1975; New York & London: Harper, 1976.
• Rimbaud Complete (translated & edited by Wyatt Alexander Mason). New York: Modern Library, 2002.
• Selected Poems and Letters (translated by Jeremy Harding & John Sturrock). London: Penguin, 2004. ISBN 0-140-44802-0.

Letters

• I Promise to Be Good: The letters (translated & edited by Wyatt Alexander Mason). New York: Modern Library, 2003.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

Poems by Rimbaud

1. Evil / Le Mal
2. Romance Novel / Roman
3. Sensation
4. Vowels / Voyelles

See also

• Poets of other languages

References

• Ivry, Benjamin. Arthur Rimbaud. Bath, Somerset, UK: Absolute Press, 1998. ISBN 1899791558.
• Kwasny, Melissa. Toward the Open Field: Poets on the Art of Poetry. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2004. ISBN 0819566063.
• MacLeish, Archibald. Poetry and Experience. Baltimore: Penguin, 1960.
• Nicholl, Charles. Somebody Else: Arthur Rimbaud in Africa 1880-1891. University of Chicago Press, 1999. ISBN 0226580296.
• Rickword, Edgell. Rimbaud: The Boy and the Poet. New York: Haskell House Publishers, 1971. ISBN 0838313094.
• Robb, Graham. Rimbaud. New York: W.W. Norton, 2000. ISBN 0393049558.
• Schmidt, Paul. [1976]. Rimbaud, Complete Works. New York: Perennial (HarperCollins), 2000. ISBN 978-0-06-095550-2.
• Spitzer, Mark. 2002. From Absinthe to Abyssinia. Berkeley: Creative Arts, 2002. ISBN 978-0887392931.
• Starkie, Enid. 1973. Arthur Rimbaud. London: Faber and Faber, 1973. ISBN 0571104401.
• Steinmetz, Jean-Luc. (translated by Jon Graham). Arthur Rimbaud: Presence of an Enigma. New York: Welcome Rain Publishers, 2001. ISBN 1566491061.

External links

Poems

• "The Sun Has Wept Rose"
• 4 poems by Rimbaud in French and English (translated by George J. Dance): "Evil/Le Mal," "Sensation," "Vowels/Voyelles," "Romance Novel/Roman"
• Arthur Rimbaud at Academy of American Poets - profile & 5 poems in English: A Season in Hell (translated by Bertrand Mathieu), Antique (translated by John Ashbery), Hellish Night (translated by Bertrand Mathieu), Novel (translated by Wyatt Mason), The Seekers of Lice (trans. Jeremy Harding)
• 2 poems by Arthur Rimbaud (translated by Jethro Bithell): The Vowels, Sensation.
• Arthur Rimbaud 1854-1891 at the Poetry Foundation
• Five poems by Rimbaud translated by Wallace Fowlie & revised by Seth Whidden.
• 6 translations from Rimbaud: The works by Dennis J. Carlile
• Rimbaud: Selected poems translated by A.S. Kline
• 60 poems; 63 translations at La Nouvelle Decadance
• Rimbaud, Arthur (4 poems in French} at Representative Poetry Online.
• Arthur Rimbaud at PoemHunter (125 poems)
• Arthur Rimbaud at Poetry Nook (142 poems)

Books

• Works by Arthur Rimbaud at Project Gutenberg
• Arthur Rimbaud at Amazon.com
• Works by or about Arthur Rimbaud in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

About

• Arthur Rimbaud at NNDB
• Arthur Rimbaud's Life and Poetry - French and English
• "Rebel Rebel: Arthur Rimbaud's brief career" at the New Yorker
• "Arse Poetica]" at The New Yorker
• Arthur Rimbaud at La Nouvelle Decadence - Extensive online library of Rimbaud translations and biographies]
• Arthur Rimbaud at Find a Grave
• "Rimbaud Was No Genius" at The Guardian, 2008