This page is dedicated to Jean-Nicholas-Arthur Rimbaud, celebrated 19th Century French poet and all-around fellow of dubious reputation. It will contain selections from Rimbaud's poetry and prose, pictures of Rimbaud and his lover/beloved, poet Paul Verlaine, and criticisms of and comments about Rimbaud and his work.
Why Rimbaud? Why the Hell not?
Seriously, though, we at Jaundiced Eye Productions once did an experimental film combining Rimbaud's words with motion picture images which we had filmed, and Rimbaud, darling of every depressed adolescent poet/creative spirit for the last hundred years, became -- and remains -- one of our favorites.
So saying, here (with Rimbaud's original italics) are some selections from the works of Rimbaud, the first two translated into English by Oliver Bernard, from Arthur Rimbaud: Collected Poems, Penguin Books (ISBN 0-14-042064-9):
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! . . .
. . . I became hungrier and hungrier for his kindness. With his kisses and loving embraces, it was truly a heaven, a dark heaven into which I came, and where I would gladly have been left, poor, deaf, dumb, blind. . . .
YES! It was because of Rimbaud's habitual use and abuse of italics that we have "come" to luv him. But all of you regular fans of ours knew that was the reason all along, didn't you?