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I Promise to Be Good: The Letters of Arthur Rimbaud
One of the most written-about literary figures in the past decade, Arthur Rimbaud left few traces when he abandoned poetry at age twenty-one and disappeared into the African desert. Although the dozen biographies devoted to Rimbaud’s life depend on one main source for information—his own correspondence—a complete edition of these remarkable letters has never been published...more
Paperback, 416 pages
Published
November 25th 2004
by Modern Library Classics
(first published 1997)
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A curiosity at best. Nothing spectacular about the letters themselves, they're basically fed up and peevish reports/lists devoid of any insights, literal flourishes or original thoughts. I might as well have read the reports of any merchant of that time.
Perhaps I was hoping for too much, as I (naturally) wished to learn why Rimbaud abandoned art/European culture so completely and whether he thought he made the right decision. I was hoping for insightful analysis on this. But there is ...more
Perhaps I was hoping for too much, as I (naturally) wished to learn why Rimbaud abandoned art/European culture so completely and whether he thought he made the right decision. I was hoping for insightful analysis on this. But there is ...more
Arthur Rimbaud's letters. Duh! A majority of them are written after 'A season in Hell' and 'Illuminations' when he had already walked away from writing poetry and set off to sell arms in Africa. It's the last we have of him.
Good read, but I wish there was a bilingual version available.
Definitely a good idea to read the Robb biography for context, but these letters are the real deal.
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French poet and adventurer, who stopped writing verse at the age of 21, and became after his early death an inextricable myth in French gay life. Rimbaud's poetry, partially written in free verse, is characterized by dramatic and imaginative vision. "I say that one must be a visionary - that one must make oneself a VISIONARY." His works are among the most original in the Symbolist moveme...more
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“All day long he was docile, intelligent, good, Though sometimes changing to a darker mood. He seemed hypocritical, could tell better lies, in the dark he saw dots of colors behind closed eyes, clenched fists, put his tongue out at his elder brother.”
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