Where to Buy
Affiliate links coming soon. Purchases will help support this project.
Read / Listen Free
A Season in Hell / Illuminations
8Arthur Rimbaud
Rimbaud's complete poetic output — revolutionized French poetry before age twenty, then abandoned literature entirely; the foundational text of European modernism.
GBM Assessment (Score: 8/10)
A Season in Hell and Illuminations represent the complete poetic output of Arthur Rimbaud, who accomplished the extraordinary feat of revolutionizing French poetry before the age of twenty and then abandoning literature entirely. His incandescent prose poems and visionary verse laid the foundations of both Symbolism and Surrealism, establishing new possibilities for poetic language, imagery, and consciousness that poets have been exploring ever since.
The work was completed in the aftermath of the Paris Commune and published between 1873 and 1886, Rimbaud's works emerged from a brief, volcanic creative period that ended when the poet abandoned literature at the age of twenty to pursue a life of travel and commerce in Africa. His influence on Surrealism and the Beat Generation has been deep, and the legend of the poet who burned so brightly and then vanished remains a compelling stories in literary history.
Europe, 1871-1873
The new German Empire dominates. George Eliot publishes Middlemarch. Rimbaud writes visionary poetry at 17. Nietzsche publishes The Birth of Tragedy. The Paris Commune has been crushed. The Long Depression begins. European imperialism accelerates.
Awards & Adaptations
Influenced Surrealists, Beats. Quit poetry at 20.
Recommended Edition
First eds. (1873/1886)
