A Season In Hell

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Still, now is the eve. Let us receive every influx of strength and true tenderness. And at dawn, armed with an ardent patience, we’ll enter into the splendid cities.

Critics disagree about the overall unity and merit of A Season in Hell. However, almost all consider it a single poem and not a group of fragments. Critical opinion has long been divided. Those who read it as an allegory of Rimbaud’s life—as does, for example, novelist Henry Miller in The Time of the Assassins—have found it the most compelling of his poems. Those who prefer the poet’s more restrained experiments regard it as juvenile or self-indulgent. Paul Valèry, arguably the last of the French Symbolist poets with whom Rimbaud is most often grouped, complained that it offers nothing but exclamations and intensity. Most criticism has steered a middle course. The trend is to treat A Season in Hell as a commentary on the writing of poetry, indeed on the very possibility of writing poetry, and not just on one poet’s personal life. Night of hell ( Nuit de l'enfer) – highlights the moment of the narrator's death and entry into hell. Aunque me siento incapaz de decir de qué trata esta obra, sin duda alguna este largo poema ha sido para mí una forma de sentir más que de pensar; mientras lo leía no podía dejar de apreciar en las palabras una fuerza infinita, y un sentido muy profundo que me hizo experimentar unas cuantas emociones a la vez. It was academic at first. I wrote of silences, nights, I expressed the inexpressible. I defined vertigos. In these lines of ‘A Season in Hell,’the speaker introduces his dark and dreary circumstances. He’s incredibly sad and destroys any possibility, it seems, of him returning to a happy state. The speaker turns to darkness, crime, and cultivates sin within his own heart. But, at the end of this section, he starts to consider the possibility that this doesn’t need to be the case. Perhaps, he can regain his “appetite” for life.

One day perhaps he’ll miraculously vanish; but I must know if he’s to attain some heaven, so I may glimpse my little friend’s assumption!’ I managed to erase all human hope from my mind. I made the wild beast’s silent leap to strangle every joy. Ko nozīmē izlasīju? Reiz sen lasīju, lasīju. Tagad pēkšņi atvēru un sapratu. Beigusi baidīties no nesaprašanas un aizrauties ar nepieciešamību pēc paskaidrojumiem, es sajutu un, sajutusi, es sapratu.

Even if I create all your memories — even if I know how to control you — I'll suffocate you." (p43) A Season in Hell & Illuminations is a journey in which Arthur Rimbaud serves as poet, visionary and madman. Rimbaud's journey, the words and images he uses, is evocative and always speaks to me (even in translation). This doesn't mean I fully understand how Rimbaud's poetry should be interpreted or how each person should approach the poems. Still, there is no doubt that they are powerful. While I'm more drawn to A Season in Hell, I've read both parts multiple times and find something different each time. I’d no longer be capable of demanding the comfort of a bastinado. I don’t think I’m embarking for a wedding with Jesus Christ for father-in-law.

More by this poet

Morning ( Matin) – this short section serves as a conclusion, where the narrator claims to have "finished my account of my hell," and "can no longer even talk". I! I, who called myself magus or angel, exempt from all morality, I’m returned to the soil, with a task to pursue, and wrinkled reality to embrace! A peasant! Fowlie: "Long ago, if my memory serves me well, my life was a banquet where everyone's heart was generous, and where all wines flowed."

Tedium’s no longer my love. Rage, debaucheries, madness, all of whose joys and disasters I know – my whole burden’s laid down. Let us appreciate without dizziness the extent of my innocence.

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What was I in the last century? I only discover myself in the present day. No more vagabonds, no more vague wars. The inferior race has spread everywhere – the people, as one says, reason: the nation and science. Poco tempo fa, M.me Verlaine è andata a cercare suo marito tentando di riportarlo indietro. Verlaine ha replicato che era troppo tardi, che non potevano tornare a vivere insieme e che in ogni caso non era più il suo uomo. ‘La vita matrimoniale mi fa orrore!’ gridò ‘Ci amiamo come due tigri!’ E, così dicendo, si era denudato il petto di fronte alla moglie: era pieno di lividi e di ferite fatte con la lama di un coltello dal suo amico Rimbaud. Queste due creature avevano l’abitudine di lottare e ferirsi l’un l’altra come animali selvatici in quanto solo così potevano avere dopo il piacere di fare di nuovo la pace. » a b c d Mathieu, Bertrand, "Introduction" in Rimbaud, Arthur, and Mathieu, Bertrand (translator), A Season in Hell & Illuminations (Rochester, New York: BOA Editions, 1991). If the old imbeciles hadn’t discovered only the false significance of Self, we wouldn’t have to now sweep away those millions of skeletons which have been piling up the products of their one-eyed intellect since time immemorial, and claiming themselves to be their authors! A Felt lyric says "you're reading from A Season in Hell but you don't know what it's about" but there's no shame in that when academics can't quite agree on its subject either.