Arthur Rimbaud
Arthur Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet who is known for his influence on modern literature and arts, which prefigured surrealism. Born in Charleville-Mézières, he started writing at a very young age and was a prodigious student, but abandoned his formal education in his teenage years to run away from home amidst the Franco-Prussian War. After running away, during his late adolescence and early adulthood, he began the bulk of his literary...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth20 October 1854
CountryFrance
It began as research. I wrote of silences, of nights, I scribbled the indescribable. I tied down the vertigo.
O witches, O misery, O hate, to you has my treasure been entrusted! I contrived to purge my mind of all human hope. On all joy, to strangle it, I pounced with the strength of a wild beast. I called to the plagues to smother me in blood, in sand, misfortune was my God.
In the great glasshouses streaming with condensation, the children in mourning-dress beheld marvels.
True life is elsewhere
As I descended into impassable rivers I no longer felt guided by the ferrymen.
The wolf howled under the leaves And spit out the prettiest feathers Of his meal of fowl: Like him I consume myself.
You will always be a hyena.
Eternity is the sun mixed with the sea
I'm intact, and I don't give a damn.
Life is the farce we are all forced to endure.
What is my nothingness to the stupor that awaits you?
Oh! If only we were naked now, and free to watch our protruding parts align; To whisper - both of us - in ecstasy!
And from then on, I bathed in the Poem of the Sea, star-infused, and opalescent, devouring green azures
One evening I sat Beauty on my knees – And I found her bitter – And I reviled her.