Complete Works

by Arthur Rimbaud

One of the world's most influential poets, Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) is remembered as much for his volatile personality and tumultuous life as he is for his writings, almost all of which he produced before the age of twenty. Paul Schmidt's acclaimed collection brings together his complete poetry, prose, and letters, including "The Drunken Boat," "The Orphans' New Year," "After the Flood," and "A Season in Hell." Complete Works is divided into eight "seasons"—Childhood, the Open Road, War, the Tormented Heart, the Visionary, the Damned Soul, a Few Belated Cowardices, and the Man with the Wind at His Heels—that reflect the facets of Rimbaud's life. Insightful commentary by Schmidt reveals the courage, vision, and imagination of Rimbaud's poetry and sheds light on one of the most enigmatic figures in letters.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, France, Fiction, Literature, French Literature, 19th Century

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1870

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would have strongly preferred that the original French follow the English translation, rather than have the book be split into English and French halves. It made for much irritation as my French is rusty.

So interesting to see the progression of his work as he matured.

Une Saison en Enfer and Illuminations are stellar.

[Manny]

Well, this is embarrassing.

So I was messing around with ChatGPT, following up on a discussion I'd had with some online collaborators about how well it would work as a mechanical conversation partner for people who wanted to improve their reading and writing skills in foreign languages. I started a French conversation with it by asking what it knew about Juliette Gréco (we went to a pleasant show about her last night). Then we got on to the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, and I asked it to give examples of how that had been treated in French literature. Among other things, it said that Rimbaud had written a poem called "Orphée". I asked if it could show it to me, and here's what it produced:

Orphée, de l'enfer tragique embouchant les boutes,
Clairon de cris humains, musicien des douleurs,
Orphée monte et chante. O sa lyre en ses pleurs
Est comme un bois vivant que brûle le déluge.

La lyre d'Orphée, hélas ! était sept fois brisée.
De la mort lente et sûre il baissait les paupières,
Et les pleurs de ses yeux crevaient les rocs de pierre,
Lorsque, parmi l'airain et les lames d'été,

Sur un char flamboyant de blanche escarboucle orné,
Immortel, il franchit les mondes et les âges,
Et s'en vint jusqu'au seuil des suprêmes mystères,
Où, défaillant d'amour, il perd tout son génie.

O merveille ! il entend ! son regard voit encore !
Eurydice ! l'amour !... Il se penche, il la touche...
Ai-je vu, dans la nuit qui régnait sur l'enfer,
Plus d'un couple heureux ainsi se confondre en pleurs ?

Orphée ! Ah ! que ton luth est doux comme la mort !

I hardly know Rimbaud, but this sounded similar to the small number of poems I had seen. I didn't completely understand it, but I'm afraid that's my usual reaction to Rimbaud, I need to reread them several times before they fully make sense. It sounded nice.

A bit later, it occurred to me to feel suspicious and I did some googling. Well, I suppose it's possible that this poem is for some reason very hard to locate, but Rimbaud is extremely famous and that would be odd. I think Chat made it up.

When this bot figures out how to play Tic-Tac-Toe and multiply reliably, it'll be kinda dangerous.
________________
[Update, Feb 15 2023]

Testing the new GPT-4 version of Chat, I asked it whether Rimbaud ever wrote a poem called "Orphée". It said it had never heard of it.

I told it that it had previously said the poem existed and copied back its own work to it. Now it said it had been wrong and that the poem was in fact by Rimbaud. But when I told it that I couldn't find the poem anywhere on Google and I was pretty sure it had written it itself, it changed its story a second time, confessed that that was probably what had happened, and shyly said it hoped I had liked its work.

ChatGPT, you're such a funny, lovable little AI.

[Selena · Rating 5 out of 5]

rimbaud is comfort reading for the soul. i fell into reading him on accident, i was talking about poetry with a friend and he happened to mention that this was his favourite poet. and he told me all about rimbaud’s past, the tryst he had with paul verlaine, the religious upbringing he had and the curious fact that rimbaud stopped writing at 21. that he dropped everything to become a merchant and to run away from it all. my interest was piqued; there isn’t any way that it couldn’t be.

what strikes me about rimbaud in the translated work that wyatt mason has compiled is the ability to watch him grow in the few years that he is a poet and writer. he lists the poetry and prose as best as he can by the year that it was written. mason even captures versions of poems, again sorting by year, so that you can see the corrections that age helped him to make to his beautiful poems.

i’ve read previous translations of rimbaud, and i’ve loved those as well, but this one felt a bit more… modern and relatable. instead of a literal translation, word by word, he tried to convey nuances of the language into english, which to me hasn’t been done as well by previous translators. i imagine reading it in the original french would be amazing, but alas, i can only speak so many languages.

below is probably my favourite prose piece that he’s written (which isn’t an easy thing to choose).

* * * *

Long ago, if my memory serves, life was a feast where every heart was open, where every wine flowed.

One night, I sat Beauty on my knee. –And I found her bitter. –And I hurt her.
I took arms against justice.

I fled, entrusting my treasure to you, o witches, o misery, o hate.

I snuffed any hint of human hope from my consciousness. I made the muffled leap of a wild beast onto any hint of joy, to strangle it.

Dying, I called my executioners over so I could bite the butts of their rifles. I called plagues to suffocate me with sand, blood. Misfortune was my god. I lay in the mud. I withered in criminal air. And I even tricked madness more than once.
And spring left me with an idiot’s unbearable laughter.

Just now, having nearly reached death’s door, I thought about seeking the key to the old feast, through which, perhaps, I might regain my appetite.

Charity is the key. –Such an inspiration proves I was dreaming!

“A hyena you’ll remain, etc….” cries the demon that crowns me with your merry poppies. “Make for death with every appetite intact, with your egotism, and every capital sin.”

Ah. It seems I have too many already: –But, dear Satan, I beg you not to look at me that way, and while you await a few belated cowardices—you who so delight in a writer’s inability to describe or inform—watch me tear a few terrible leaves from my book of the damned.

it’s hard for me to explain why i love a poet, or a specific poem. i feel transported, or full of life or anger, or just an emotion that previously hadn’t consumed me, for the duration of my reading and for some time beyond. i’m stuck in that space that the author has written and it feels for a time like i want nothing more than to drown in that emotion. this is why i read rimbaud, all the time.

[Edita · Rating 5 out of 5]

For I is someone else. If the brass awakes as horn, it can't be to blame. This much is clear: I'm around for the hatching of my thought: I watch it, I listen to it: I release a stroke from the bow: the symphony makes its rumblings in the depths, or leaps fully-formed onto the stage.
*
The Poet makes himself into a seer by a long, involved and logical derangement of all the senses. Every kind of love, of suffering, of madness; he searches himself; he exhausts every possible poison so that only essence remains. He undergoes unspeakable tortures that require complete faith and superhuman strength, rendering him the ultimate Invalid among men, the master criminal, the first among the damned-and the supreme Savant! For he arrives at the unknown!For, unlike everyone else, he has developed an already rich soul! He arrives at the unknown, and when, bewildered, he ends up losing his understanding of his visions, he has, at least, seen them! It doesn't matter if these leaps into the unknown kill him: other awful workers will follow him; they'll start at the horizons where the other has fallen!
*
The poet is really a thief of fire. [...] he must make sure his inventions live and breathe; if what he finds down below has a form, he offers form: if it is formless, he offers formlessness. Find the words;

[Nik Kane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spent the summer of my 18th year in semi-voluntary exile on a tiny isle in the Adriatic. Of the few books I had room to pack I think two were different translations of Rimbaud and one was about him. I passed those four months drinking a lot, listening to a lot of Bob Marley, Bob Dylan and T-Rex, and reading Rimbaud constantly. These poems are so tied up in my mind with that period of time that I still can't read them without being instantaneously transported back there. Same with T-Rex's Electric Warrior. What we consume becomes a part of us, a part of our lives. It serves to locate us in time. A thousand books and songs spinning their gossamer webs across the surface of my life, tying disparate moments together through these persistent associations. Who says time-travel doesn't exist?

[E · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rimbaud was a brilliant young punk who could have been the origin of the Trangressive Art Movement.

He wore filthy clothes. Had flea infested hair and never washed. In truth he smelled bad. He loved to offend people in any way possible. He loved it.

He would write vulgar poems and stories that, at that time, would leave readers appalled.

Rimbaud was drawn to Paul Verlaine, who was a talented poet and writer. Verlaine, who was already struggling with alcohol abuse, fell madly
for Rimbaud.

Verlaine was 27 and married when he met the 17 year old Rimbaud. They would indulge themselves in Absinthe,drugs and alcohol and often fight viciously.

When Rimbaud left Verlaine, he fell apart.
The rest is in the book.

Five Stars
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

[Maher Battuti · Rating 5 out of 5]

عشت سنوات كثيرة مع الشاعر المتمرد رامبو ، وقرأت أعماله كلها بالإنجليزية أولا ثم بالفرنسية ، وترحمت بعض قصائده ، ولكن هذا الكتاب للشاعر رفعت سلام قد أوفى بكل ما يريد القارئ العربى من احتواء لشعر رامبو .
الترجمة فى لغة جميلة رقراقة ، مع أمانة للنص الأصلى مما يجعل من الكتاب الذى وصلنى فى مهجرى حديثا ، المرجع الأخير بالعربية لهذا الشاعر الذى أصبح ايقونة هامة فى الشعر العالمى

[Danilo Scardamaglio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sono totalmente devoto ad Arthur Rimbaud: perciò, non aver ancora letto la produzione poetica antecedente a Una stagione all'inferno e Illuminazioni era per me fonte di un rimorso costante. Fortunatamente ho rimediato, sfruttando anche l'occasione per ritornare alle due opere di maggior fama (Una stagione è tra l'altro, forse, il mio libro preferito in assoluto).
Quel che è evidente nell'intera produzione poetica di Rimbaud è la sua straordinaria fedeltà alla rivolta, addirittura presente fin dai primi scritti infantili. È una rivolta costante, esplosiva, che dapprima dà fuoco al contenuto poetico con la presenza di un precocissimo sentimento anticlericale e antiborghese, e che pian piano si amplia fino a sovvertire dapprima la forma dei componimenti, poi il lessico e il ritmo (Rimbaud amplia la poetica baudeleriana dell'orrido, estendendo il suo interesse, in modo del tutto rivoluzionario, oltre che alla bruttezza e al grottesco ad oggetti grigi, privi di presunto interesse poetico, così come a parole impoetiche da una prospettiva musicale e ritmica), giungendo così a delle creazioni dalla musicalità sghemba, delirante, personalissima, per poi concludersi col totale sovvertimento della poesia contemporanea con la creazione della poetica del Veggente.
Eppure, per quanto risalti chiaramente l'intenzione provocatrice, distruttrice del "poeta dalle suole di vento", la sua furia antiborghese e anarchica, non si sottolinea mai abbastanza un dato spirituale totalmente compresente a tutto ciò, e anzi forse la diretta origine: una straordinaria innocenza, una purezza commovente che risuona sia in alcuni ripiegamenti intimistici, sia nell'ansia totalizzante di governare il mondo col solo linguaggio poetico. In effetti, la poesia di Rimbaud è una poesia intrinsecamente costruttiva (basti pensare all'influenza che ancora oggi esercita), la cui eredità si imprime soprattutto nella poetica del Veggente con la sua volontà di liberare il significato al di là delle sue più limitanti apparenze, con la conseguente responsabilità etica che il poeta (e in ciò Rimbaud si mostra indissolubilmente romantico) assume nei confronti dell'umanità intera: ne nasce una poesia, soprattutto nei Dernières vers e nelle Illuminations, in cui la potenza icastica è folle, in cui l'ibridazione tra linguaggio verbale e visuale è assoluta, in cui una semplice immagine può condensare un universo di significato infinito.

(Menzione assoluta per la straordinaria edizione di Ivos Margoni, tra le più complete edizioni di un libro che abbia mai incontrato: tra ricchezza di commento e compiutezza dell'introduzione, credo che fare di meglio sia impossibile.)

[Bogdan (à Théoule-sur-mer)]

Volant avec Norwegian de Copenhague à Nice – c'est mon premier voyage en France –, j'ai remarqué que, sur le dos des sièges, il y avait écrit « Literature only », là, sous la poche en plastique qui contient les magazines de l'avion avec toutes les offres de cette ligne aérienne, les rabais, les réclames et les destinations où l'on peut encore voler si l'on en a les moyens et la bonne fortune ; bref, le récit de tout ce qui s'appelle « littérature » à haute altitude.

Enthousiasmé et amusé par cette laconique et ambiguë injonction, ou devise, écrite au dos de chaque siège et devant les yeux de chaque passager, j'en ai profité pour faire une photo où j'ajoute, sous le « Literature only », mon mince bouquin qui contient l'œuvre complète d'Arthur Rimbaud, aventurier mort à mon âge, qui a renoncé à la poésie à vingt ans pour apprendre des langues et voyager…



Par les soirs bleus d’été, j’irai dans les sentiers,
Picoté par les blés, fouler l’herbe menue :
Rêveur, j’en sentirai la fraîcheur à mes pieds.
Je laisserai le vent baigner ma tête nue.

Je ne parlerai pas, je ne penserai rien :
Mais l’amour infini me montera dans l’âme,
Et j’irai loin, bien loin, comme un bohémien,
Par la Nature, – heureux comme avec une femme.

Sensation - Arthur Rimbaud

[M.L. Rio · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Rimbaud and I really enjoy Mason's translations; they're faithful without being inflexible.

[Neep · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetry has always been kinda dull to me. Some poetry is pretty, but I've never really seen the point to it.

And then I discovered Rimbaud.

The thing about Rimbaud is that you can't read his poetry without knowing at least some of his backstory. His religious upbringing. His frequent rebellions and escapes. His affair with Paul Verlaine. And then, most amazing of all, the fact that he stopped writing poetry before he hit 21.

This collection is of everything that Rimbaud wrote, and he wrote it all at an age that most would consider to still be childhood. A majority of these poems, however, are anything but immature.

Really, I bought this book for A Season In Hell. I wasn't disappointed. "First Delirium" is heartbreaking. "Second Delirium" is beautiful. And with such quotable lines as "I turned silences and nights into words. What was unutterable, I wrote down. I made the whirling world stand still", it's no wonder it's his most famous work.

I then started reading his other poems. Just a few, here and there. The thing I do when I'm reading is if I find a line that stands out to me, I put a sticky note on the corner of the page. I soon realised I was putting notes on nearly every other page. That's just how fantastic his words are.

And yes, I realise this is just one translation of Rimbaud's work, but I can't help but feel that no matter who translated Rimbaud's poems, the beauty and truth of his words would still stand out to me. He's just that fucking good.

[ميقات الراجحي · Rating 4 out of 5]

قام أستاذ اللغات والحضارات في باريس (كاظم جهاد) بترجمة كل أشعاره للعربية نقلاً عن الفرنسية .

يعتبر هذا الكتاب من أفضل ما كتب عنه عربياً . حيث ضم حياته منذ ولادته حتى تنقلاته مابين فرنسا ومصر واليمن والحبشة والعودة لبلاده من جديد . وقد ضم كل كتاباته الشعرية وآثاره التي نشرت بعد وفاته . وقد نشرت هنا القصائد اللاتينية . وكذلك تم توثيق قصصه القصيرة والتي امتازت بلغة شاعرية قوية جداً . وكل دواوينه الشعرية المنشورة قبل وفاته وبعد وفاته ، والكتابات النثرية ، ورسائله أثناء فترة الترحال في آخر حياته، وسيرته في نهاية الكتاب الكبير

لم تهضم الترجمة كعادتها جمال شعر رامبو ودلالة كلماته

[Woke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fever dreams and drug visions in prose from the OG prodigal dissolute hipster dirtbag poet himself

[Amy (Other Amy) · Rating 2 out of 5]

All I can think about this is that Rimbaud's work must really sing in French. Because this ... this is not good. It is not remotely great. This is the ranting of a teenage boy who did not want to grow up, did not want to be responsible. He insults his mother, but he always runs home to her. It seems to me that his reputation mostly rests on his shocking biography and his letters. (Of course, I recognize that timing is everything in literature; when he wrote, much of this must have seemed new and startling as well.)

Mind you, the makings of greatness are here, but at the time he was writing (from the age of 15 to the age of 20) he did not have the experience to fill it out. And he knew that. His famous "I am depraving myself as much as I can," his ars poetica is based on gathering the experience he knew he needed. His drinking and drugging, his wild affair with Verlaine, his travels, all to explore his own otherness, his unknown, to become aware of and to cultivate himself with the express goal of knowing and writing so that others may then build on that work. But then:

Science, the new nobility! Progress! The world moves!...And why shouldn't it?
We have visions of numbers. We are moving toward the Spirit. What I say is oracular and absolutely right. I understand...and since I cannot express myself except in pagan terms, I would rather keep quiet.
-from "Bad Blood" in A Season in Hell, 1873

And just two years after that, he quit writing. On October 14, 1875, six days shy of his 21st birthday, he writes his friend Ernest Delahaye "the hell with 'my craft and art,'" requesting information on pursuing a degree in science. The letter contains his last known poem, on soldiers farting. He then goes to travel, then a life as a trader in Africa. (And ooh, hello colonialism.)

Truly, I regret that he did not continue. Maybe he could not. Maybe the wild living was part and parcel with the poetry for him and he could not write without it. I would have liked to see his poetry when he grew up. When he had had to live by the sweat of his brow and toil with the thorns and thistles as we all do, I would have liked to see what a man of his impressive craftsmanship could do with that wisdom. But I certainly don't begrudge him his turning to other things. I only wonder what might have been.

I don't have any French with which to judge Paul Schmidt's translation, or I would be reading the originals of course, but his translations make perfectly good English verse. I appreciated his arrangement of the body of work into seasons bracketed by a brief biographical note and letters; it helped to place the poetry within Rimbaud's life. I did think it was incredibly petty of Mr. Schmidt to suggest that it would have been better for the poet to disappear or die young than suffer the banal life of business he turned to. There is more to life than just poetry, and Rimbaud died young enough at 37. Of what he left behind, this is probably my favorite (and it is an early work):

Crows

Lord, when the open field is cold,
When in battered villages
The endless angelus dies-
Above the dark and drooping world
Let the empty skies disclose
Your dear, delightful crows.

Armada dark with harsh cries,
Your nests are tossed by icy winds!
Along the banks of yellowed ponds,
On roads where crumbling crosses rise,
In cold and gray and mournful weather
Scatter, hover, dive together!

In flocks above the fields of France
Where yesterday's dead men lie,
Wheel across the winter sky;
Recall our black inheritance!
Let duty in your cry be heard,
Mournful, black, uneasy bird.

Yet in that oak, you saints of God,
Swaying in the dying day,
Leave the whistling birds of May
For those who found, within that wood
From which they will not come again,
That every victory is vain.

(c. 1870? During the Franco-Prussian War)

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paul Schmidt’s was the fourth translation of Rimbaud’s hallucinatory poetry that I’ve encountered, having previously read renderings by Louise Varèse, Wyatt Mason (my first entry into the mercurial world of Rimbaud) and Wallace Fowlie. Of the three translations of the complete works – Fowlie’s, Schmidt’s and Mason’s – Mason’s was the most recent, published 35 years after the other two first appeared in print. And perhaps in hindsight, and with the other two translations as guides, Mason provides what I think is the truest interpretation of Rimbaud’s works. Although this review is of Schmidt’s work, I will refer to the Mason translation many times throughout: (1) because it does combine some of the best of the Schmidt and Fowlie translations, both of which Mason was very familiar with and relied upon when he wrote his own translation, and (2) because in the intro to his work Mason draws many comparisons between his translation and those of these two predecessors.

In the introduction to Mason’s work, he uses up a good deal of space discussing the art of translation, sometimes with humorous and interesting examples to make his point. He begins this section writing: “The number of ways in which any single line can be translated is exceeded only by the number of theories of translation that have been advanced over the years.” He then proceeds, focusing on the “yin and yang of translation, its irreconcilable poles: literalism or liberty,” the latter sometimes referred to throughout as ‘poetry.’

Mason’s treatment of Rimbaud walks a fine middle line between the interpretations by Schmidt and Fowlie, with Schmidt favoring ‘poetry’ or ‘liberty’ and Fowlie preferring literalism, often neglecting (in the process) rhythm and form. Of Fowlie’s translation, Mason writes: “Fowlie’s is the ideal translation for a student of French who wishes to read the original but requires a crutch. As such Rimbaud’s pages are presented on facing pages, making it impossible to forget the translations’ dependence upon them: they are joined at the hip.” One thing that I actually quite enjoyed about the Fowlie translation when I read it was the parallel French text (something one also finds in James McGowan’s treatment of Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil, the next book in my to-read queue, which I read for the first time last year). Mason’s Rimbaud Complete includes the French poems in a separate section after his translations. This is fine, too, but not my preference. Schmidt’s Arthur Rimbaud. Complete Works does not include the original French versions of the poems at all, and that was actually one of my major qualms with Schmidt’s work.

Mason also points out that Fowlie’s work “ignores the consequential fact that French grammar and English grammar are very different,” accusing him of using a “third language that lies between the two, the language of translatorese that fuses (in this case) English words onto French grammar.” One example of this that Mason points out is where Fowlie translates ‘casquette de moire’ as ‘cap of silk,’ which he argues has an “antique quality” – Mason’s translation prefers the rendering ‘silk cap.’ I, personally, preferred the Fowlie translation in this case, particular for the way that it flows, even though I agree with Mason that this would simply be translated as ‘silk cap’ in English. This is a bit nitpicky to me, but the point is valid, nonetheless.

Compared to Fowlie’s translation, Mason writes, Schmidt’s “could not be more different. Schmidt has not translated the poem’s words, but rather its style and apparent subject (erotic horseplay). . . . Whereas Fowlie ignores rhyme and rhythm, Schmidt bravely holds on to them. . . . In so doing, however, Schmidt writes a totally new poem that may or may not be beautiful . . . but which has little to do with the literal sense of what Rimbaud wrote.” When I read other translations of Rimbaud (after my first encounter) it seemed that I had more or less, read the poems before. This time around, there were many poems that seemed entirely new to me due largely to the liberality with which Schmidt approaches the original, his free poetic approach versus a literal interpretation.

I found Schmidt’s version novel, but it didn’t have the feel of Rimbaud that I’ve become accustomed to. But I can forgive Schmidt this, because he acknowledges in his introduction to the work that the purpose of his translation is to “speak [Rimbaud’s words] in my own language.” His translation, he writes, is “a drama that Rimbaud has written, and I now perform. This is my Rimbaud. . . .” Just as filmmakers give their own interpretations to works when they adapt them from print to the screen, so too Schmidt reimagines the words that Rimbaud might have used if he were writing his poems in English in the later 1960s.

Mason’s translation, the first that I read, is probably the truest of the three, as it treads the fine thin line between Schmidt’s radical interpretation and Fowlie’s conservative and comparatively rhythmless one. A future task is to read the three translations side by side (maybe next year?). I do think there is veracity to the claims of many critics that Wyatt Mason’s translation is “the definitive one” for the time in which we are living.

One thing that I enjoyed most about Schmidt’s interpretation was how he broke the work into eight seasons that defined the life of young Rimbaud, each opening with a different passage from Une Saison en Enfer. At the very beginning, Schmidt justifies this style in his introduction, focusing on Rimbaud’s own preoccupation with seasons, “those stretches of time that open unawares and close painfully in our lives.” I also liked that before the poems and letters contained in each of these “seasons,” Schmidt offers readers a biographical sketch of the said period in Rimbaud’s life.

Mason’s biographical sketch of the artist is scanty, focusing solely on the work of the artist, and Fowlie’s brief biography of the artist comes at the onset. By presenting Rimbaud’s life in seasons, Schmidt really captures effectively the blossoming of Rimbaud’s genius and style and then his sharp split with art in favor of commerce. By the eighth and final season we are presented with a sober and straight Rimbaud, not this young libertine that we met before: “The voice we hear . . . is that of Rimbaud the businessman, clearly distinguished from the work of Rimbaud the poet. Rarely are the two voices so distinct. Poets’ letters tend to be just that—conscious, literary ‘artistic’ pieces of writing. Only occasionally do we find the vatic voice so clearly distinguished from the mundane one. With Rimbaud the separation is complete.”

I would have liked having the original French versions available in the work for purposes of reference (I favor the parallel text that one finds in the Fowlie translation), and I would have preferred a bit more of a literal interpretation. I think that Mason gives us the best taste of what Rimbaud truly was saying. Fowlie’s translation is honest, but bland in comparison. And in Schmidt one can find hints of the essence of Rimbaud, but there are sharper flavors that dominate the senses. Schmidt’s translation is certainly worth reading, and it is beautifully organized, but it is really a very free interpretation, Schmidt telling Rimbaud’s story, but adapting it to the words and style he feel are best suited to communicate the message. This is, after all, not Rimbaud per se, but Schmidt’s creative interpretation of Rimbaud.

[Jerry Landry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rimbaud is one of those literary figures that I find myself coming back to from time to time and always developing a new fascination and affection for.

[Ellie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arthur Rimbaud is one of my favourite poets and that’s that

[Gray Side · Rating 4 out of 5]

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‏ كتاب مهم يشمل سيرة حياة الشاعر جان - نيكولاس آرثر رامبو، اضافة إلى صوره ورسائله لعائلته ومراسلاته مع صديقه الشاعر ڤيرلين، يضم الكتاب أعماله الشعرية الكاملة من كتاباته المدرسية إلى آخر أشعاره التي نشرت بعد اعتزاله المبكر للشعر. 

‏ المترجم الشاعر رفعت سلام بذل كامل جهده في جمع أعماله الكاملة من المراجع الفرنسية وترتيبها زمنياً للقارىء مع مقدمة بسيطة لكل فترة، يتضح ذلك في تدرّج شاعرية رامبو من أشعاره المبكرة التي تميل للصوفية حتى انتقل إلى قصائده الأكثر تمرداً وجراءة بنفس التصوف والشفافية وهذا بالذات ما شدني لأشعاره.

‏ ما أن تنتهي من قراءة الكتاب حتى تبدأ في التفكير في ضياع حياة آرثر رامبو لأجل لا شيء، كيف تعملقت موهبته أمام حياته القصيرة حتى استولت على كل ما فيها من فضائل وتركت له الفتات، رامبو الطفل كان يملك وعياً ناصع البياض جعله غريباً بين أقرانه، حروف الهجاء تتراقص في ذهنه بشعرية آثمة بنظر والدته المتزمتة دينياً، يدرك أنه يملك مفاتيح اللغة ويكتشف ذلك مع أستاذ البلاغة چورچ إيزامبار، يترك المدرسة لتبدأ رحلاته المتكررة بين باريس وشارلڤيل في محاولات لنشر قصائده .

‏تتغير حياته تماماً بعد تعرفه على الشاعر ڤيرلين الذي بدأ معه الصراع بين رامبوالشاعر ورامبو الإنسان، وانتهى الصراع باعتزاله التام الشعر ورحيله للشرق، شرق موحش يختلف عن الشرق الذي سكن مبكراً في خيال رامبو وجعله ينبذ حضارة الغرب، تخبطات رامبو الأشقر جعلت منه تاجر أسلحة فاشل يحاجج التجار بتفسيره الخاص لآيات قرآنية، رسائله لعائلته كانت تعج بالنفور من بلادة السكان المحليين وحرارة الطقس وهو الذي كان "يخشى الشتاء لأنه فصل الرفاهية" الغريب في تلك الفترة أنه كان يتمنى انجاب طفل يشهد بحضوره لهذا العالم رغم ادراكه التام لحالة الضياع التي يعيشها، أخيراً حمل ابن السابعة والثلاثين عاماً جسده المريض عائداً لبلاده، ليحتضر بجانب شقيقته الصغرى ايزابيل.

"كنتُ ناضجاً من أجل الموت، وعبر درب الأخطار كان وهني يُفضي بي إلى أقاصي العالم وإلى سميريا وطن الظلمات والأعاصير"

‏ رامبو فشل في مواكبة موهبته الشعرية التي لا زالت متوهجة وساحرة في أشعاره القليلة التي تركها للعالم -رغم حاجز الترجمة - بقي اسمه في الذاكرة بفضل ابتكاره للشعر من جديد، وبفضل قصائده الموغلة في الرمزية حتى وصلت لاستشراف ما نعيشه اليوم من أحداث وصراعات دامية، يقول في هذيانات كيمياء الكلمة :

"كنت أحلم بحملات صليبية، برحلات لاكتشافات مجهولة لدينا، بجمهوريات بلا تواريخ، بحروب دينية خامدة، بثورات في الأخلاق، بهجرات للأعراق والقارات : كنت أؤمن بكل سِحر."

‏ راق لي وصف الكاتب رمسيس عوض لوحش النقاء آرثر رامبو :

إذا قلت عنه أنه شيطان رجيم فأنت من الصادقين، وان قلت أنه صوفي يسعى إلى النورانية والشفافية الروحية فأنت من الصادقين.

‏ وصف مقارب لما قاله رامبو عن نفسه :

" أنا الذي اعتبرت نفسي مجوسياً أو ملاكاً، متحرراً من كل أخلاق، قد عدت إلى التراب، بمهمة أسعى إليها، وإلى الواقع الخشن لأعانقه ! فلاح ! فهل خُدعت ؟ وهل ستكون المحبة بالنسبة لي شقيقة الموت ؟ في النهاية سأطلب العفو عن أني تغذيت على الكذب. وَهَيَّا. لكن ما من يدٍ صديقة ! ومن أين استمد المدد ؟"

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another one that disappeared into the Goodreads void. Someone out there in another universe is probably enjoying it now. Anyways, one of my favorites. Makes me feel the way Kafka feels. Expresses deep and powerful emotion through words.

[Petruccio Hambasket IV · Rating 5 out of 5]

"In this moment of awakening, I had a vision of purity! Through the mind we go to God!

What a crippling misfortune!"

[Davvybrookbook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just read this for a second time, most all of it in a day. Reading all of Rimbaud’s work in a day is intense. And this edition by Paul Schmidt was quite a lot more enjoyable than the dual language facing text. I was able to enjoy the tone and voice of the translator, while feeling as close to Rimbaud without reading his French text. The organization into episodes of his poetic genesis was a great way to organize thematic and stylistic content, and especially to be able to supplement it with personal letters and biographical detail. I greatly enjoyed the additional documents provided in this edition with letters from Verlaine, his mother and sister, police interviews as well as the government and business contacts. His later life is Abyssinia is almost as fascinating as his turbulent youth. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

One thing I could not connect in the first read/edition/translation was that Rimbaud showed Verlaine “The Drunken Boat” upon his first meeting; that must have blown him away. In many ways it is a magical work. Another is the exact nature of Rimbaud work in Africa and how questionable some of his behaviors must have been. As well, having his mother’s letters certainly makes one wonder whatever brought Rimbaud the need to run away, to escape, to make his own way.



First reading:
The only thing wrong with this edition, the 1966 Wallace Fowlie translated University of Chicago Press published, Rimbaud: Collected Words, Selected Letters is 30 pages containing Une Saison en enfer are missing (so I had to read another translation, without the facing original French text). ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rimbaud the artist in many ways supplants his own great art—to make sense of his work we look to the man, err boy. The story of Rimbaud’s prodigal genius, his revolt, his escape to Paris, a volatile relationship with Paul Verlaine (alcohol, drugs, getting shot, beatings, divorce) only capture the adolescent growth Rimbaud undergoes to express himself as “seer,” a poetic concept he evinces in letters to Paul Demeny in 1871 as the rational “derangement of all the senses.”

The great thing about Rimbaud’s Collected Works is that all poems fall into four discernible periods. His early Poésies (1871) contain more orthodox works, while his Dernier Vers (1872) mark an experimental style to find a more universal language with the rejection of orthodox verse, the abandonment of rhyme, and a more free form. Une Saison en enfer (1873) and Les Illuminations (1874) display this strikingly new poetic form of language.

By 1878, Rimbaud has fully abandoned poetry for years and has made is way to Alexandria, Egypt heading to Aden (now Yemen) via the Suez Canal and Red Sea to set up work as an exporter, frequently of coffee, in Harar, Abyssinia (now Ethiopia). For ten years Rimbaud’s correspondences with his family obsess about his subsistence on exploitative circumstances and his striving to earn a living with which to be able to find rest, and establish a family. Due to ill health in a right knee, he returns to Marseilles and is hospitalized, eventually losing the leg and dying after a return home to Charleville. Indeed, the life of the man after the adolescent artist has past raises so many questions. A fascinating glimpse into one great poet.

[Alex O'Brien · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful edition of Rimbaud's Complete Works in translation.

Paul Schmidt, the translator, divides the poems into eight seasons according to the estimated chronology. There is a fine introduction to Rimbaud's work, and there are further introductory notes at the beginning of each season section, providing context to the poems. Rimbaud's letters are placed both throughout the text, and there's a large collection at the end in the eight season. This makes the book read somewhat like a memoir as the reader progresses through the various comments, poems, and letters.

Among the highlights for me were the sixth season, which includes the A Season in Hell poems, the seventh season, which contains the breathtaking poems Lines, Lives, and Cities I and II, and the last season in which his letters reveal the pain of Rimbaud's last years and unfold in tragedy.

The only concern I had was in trying to identify which poems belonged to which books that have been published in the past: it's not easy for a novice like me to know which poems would have been included in Rimbaud's various works (i.e. Poesies, Illuminations, A Season in Hell). Perhaps a better cross-referencing would have helped.

It was reading Bob Dylan's Complete Lyrics recently that brought me to Rimbaud's poems, and it was reading Rimbaud's Complete Works that brought me to re-listen to all of my Door's albums and to reread Jim Morrison's biography, No One Here Gets Out Alive.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first reaction to reading the Complete Works of Arthur Rimbaud was one of shock and admiration. Shock because I'd never read anything like it before, and admiration because of my awareness of how young he was when he wrote his best poems. Of course, these feelings soon became mixed with countless others, for it seems as soon as one encounters Rimbaud the poet, one can never look back.

This was Henry Miller's experience of him, and it was no doubt mine as well. Encountering Rimbaud the extraordinary man and the attendant extraordinary life (as I learned from reading Graham Robb's expertly researched biography Rimbaud) would only intensify this, even if the poetry and the life are inseparable.

With Rimbaud's poetry, everything depends on the pure and often deranged expression (to reference Rimbaud's famous words on the "derangement of the senses") of poetic language, and this, coupled with his radically novel way of using it to intense effect, is what makes him a singular artist. Early 1870s-era poems like the visually hypnotising "The Drunken Boat" and the creatively composed "Vowels" are strong examples of this. The works from Illuminations, the imagery of which is often dazzling and brilliant, also shouldn't be left out here.

As another example, I found and still find "A Season in Hell", one of his longer prose poem efforts, deeply affecting for its haunting imagery and style. Translator Paul Schmidt's English rendering of Rimbaud's French verse in the Complete Works brings these qualities to the surface for monolingual readers (even though I personally prefer other translations like Louise Varese's).

The translated letters of Rimbaud (Paul Verlaine's, too) were also enthralling, especially the Africa period entries where he was always contending with some kind of physical, mental or financial difficulty. They weren't always easy to read. One could say they possess their own inherent poetry as Rimbaud's life could be interpreted as a sort of unpredictable epic poem, so to speak, one where tragedy had as much an equal say as promise.

I'm sure reading a bilingual or French version of Rimbaud in addition wouldn't hurt either, since braving the original French of his work would surely be another reading experience altogether. I've covered few of the many aspects of Rimbaud's undeniable influence on the literature, poetry, music, theatre, art and even fashion of modern Western times.

In this way there'll always be certain downsides to barely scraping the surface of any great poet's work or poetics, particularly that of Rimbaud's calibre, but I hope this short review of the Complete Works of Arthur Rimbaud will inspire people to learn about Rimbaud and what he achieved.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have very fond memories of finding Rimbaud. I was killing time in one of my favorite small bookstores before I was to meet friends and wound up in front of the poetry shelf on the second floor. His name sounded familiar to me from all my reading on Bob Dylan, and the wonderful movie "I'm Not There" where A.R. is played by Ben Whishaw ("R-I-M-B-A-U-D"), so I picked this volume off the shelf and started reading.

An hour later I was still on the floor of the bookstore, late to my appointment, and was absolutely in love. To the point where I seriously considered picking up French in order to read him without the buffer of the translator. He gets language in a way that has only been rivaled by few other writers since Rimbaud's death. Recommended for the poor starving artists among you.

[Haruka · Rating 5 out of 5]

He has cruelly, wildly, savagely, and oh, so beautifully
scratched, ripped off his own flesh,
his layers
Bloody, raw, completely blunt, pure,
everything and nothing
All is clear in the violent red
In the blood, in the teeth, in the aggression, in the claws
He has ripped away all his flesh
until he reaches his heart
As he writes
He is savagely ripping, biting, tearing
apart his very essence,
his beating heart
He is dying and living
Ripping and panting and breathing and biting
There is blood
So much blood
The claws savagely rip everything up
There is blood
Everywhere
Wild eyes, white teeth
Savage, pure, such beautiful aggression
There is blood
So much blood
Beautiful aggression
I burst with you

[Gene Wagendorf III · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best collection of Rimbaud's work I've read. Presents several translations of his work and justifies/explains why and how the editor got to the one they chose. Also includes some really great excerpts from Rimbaud's school notebooks, poems and little blurbs, that you won't find anywhere else.

[Qabas Albawy]

خاب املي ، قصائده ابتهتتها التجرمة
تبدوا بلا الوان
رأيت جنونه رأيت ثورته رأيت حبه في كلمات مصطنعة لكني لم اشعر بأي منها!

[Marwa Eletriby · Rating 3 out of 5]

العالم ظمآن للحب
.
كان لدينا
شيء ما في القلب
يشبه الحب
.
هذه الأسئلة الألف
التي تتفرع
لا تفضي في النهاية إلا
إلى السكر والجنون
.
ترجمة رفعت سلام فاتنة
لكن كثير من القصائد لم تمسَّني روحها

[anaïs · Rating 5 out of 5]

« On est pas sérieux quand on a dix-sept ans. »

omgg
honnêtement, je pense que même cinq étoiles ne suffisent pas pour qualifier le talent et la plume de Rimbaud.

je suis clairement tombée amoureuse de ce recueil en fait, je me demande vraiment pourquoi j'ai attendu aussi longtemps pour le lire. tout à l'intérieur m'a beaucoup plu. les poèmes en vers et en prose, le désir de provocation de l'auteur, son style singulier, sa jeunesse et pourtant son incroyable maturité, etc.
bref, c'est un énorme coup de cœur !

[Davide]

Sembra - instabile a metà della strada che porta dall'irritazione alla noia - un epigono di Rimbaud.

(O gran tripudio delle esclamazioni!)