A Season in Hell & Other Poems

by Arthur Rimbaud, Michael Hamburger, Norman Cameron

A Season in Hell is one of the great works of modern literature. It is published here in a bilingual edition together with many of the verse poems which Rimbaud wrote between March 1870 and August 1872. A Season in Hell was Rimbaud's literary testament, his apology and a contribution to the mythology of his time. Norman Cameron (1905-53) was born in India and educated at Fettes College and Oriel College, Cambridge. He worked as a superintendent of Education in Nigeria, before becoming an advertising copywriter in London. During the 1930s he was a frequent contributor to Geoffrey Grigson's New Verse. He was awarded an MBE for his propaganda work during the war, and served with British forces in Austria until 1947, when he returned to London and advertising. In addition to his translations of Rimbaud, he published several collections of poetry including The Winter House (1935) and Work in Hand (1942). His Collected Poems (edited by Warren Hope and Jonathan Barker) was published by Anvil in 1990.

Genres: Poetry, France, LGBT, Classics

208 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2004

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

[Clara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must say, this book is unsetting. It's all simbolism; very strange and poetic, dark and inlightening. Profound and profain. Dark and bright. At first you can be lost, but then, you'll found the meaning. It's caos, so if you like caos, you'll enjoy this book.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just an astonishing collection considering Rimbaud's youth and relative inexperience in the world. That some one in his late teen years, basically age 16 to 19, could convey such depth of emotion and such a fiery personality just floors me. Talk about a rock star before rock stars existed!!!

[Poly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este libro fue una mezcla de voladura de cerebros y un "no entiendo que está pasando". A Rimbaud hay que leerlo como 485784578 veces hasta entenderlo del todo, definitivamente. Ahora, te lo quiero mucho en mi estantería :C

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow, like, none of this worked for me. None of it. Not the relentless nihilism and negativity, not the sloppy metre, not the themes or subjects. When I was twelve years old I stood up in front of a class and described Wordsworth's 'The Daffodils' - at the time everyone's favourite poem, because it was also the only poem they at that stage had ever read (rural Ireland, the nineties, the end) - as 'sentimental nonsense'. The natural conclusion to that twelve-year-old's taste should be Rimbaud and Baudelaire and Bukowski, but it's emphatically, crashingly, not. I presume Saison d'Enfer was shocking when it was first published, but I spent most of it so bored I had to prop my eyelids open.

There's little bits of false gold in amongst this muck, but they don't tip the balance of how banal and dull I found it even slightly.

Time Without End:

"Soul, you sentinel,
Murmur and confess,
Day is fiery hell,
Night is nothingness."

I mean, that's an accurate description of depression.

Ravings
I - Foolish Virgin:

"Yet all is permitted to me, who am burdened with the contempt of the most contemptible hearts."

Pure, unadulterated misery porn.

Ravings
II - Alchemy of the Word:

"I made rules for the shape and movement of each consonant, and, with the aid of instinctive rhythms, I flattered myself that I had invented a poetic terminology that would one day be accessible to all the sense. Translation rights reserved."

I'll admit, I sniggered.

Morning:

"Looking up from the same desert, to the same night, always my weary eyes awaken to the silver star - always, whilst nothing troubles the Kings of Life, the three Magi: heart, soul and mind. When shall we go beyond the mountains, to salute the birth of the new work, the new wisdom, the putting to flight of tyrants and demons, the end of superstition; to adore - the first to do so - Christmas upon earth?"

That's pretty much the conclusion and it's a fine one, but whoa was it not worth trudging through the preceding muck.

[May M · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never have the right words to express how much I love and relate to this man, how each and every word uttered by him compels me to become part of his notions, raw sensations for the mentally bewildered, the saddest soul and he now belongs to me, in all ways possible! I read him over, and over again, perhaps for the rest of my life