|
|
| |
"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."
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), French poet. Letter, May 15, 1871. Collected Poems, ed. Oliver Bernard (1962). |
"I is another."
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), French poet. Letter, May 13, 1871. Collected Poems, ed. Oliver Bernard (1962). |
"There shall be poets! When woman's unmeasured bondage shall be broken, when she shall live for and through herself, man—hitherto detestable—having let her go, she, too, will be poet! Woman will find the unknown! Will her ideational worlds be different from ours? She will come upon strange, unfathomable, repellent, delightful things; we shall take them, we shall comprehend them."
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), French poet. Letter, May 15, 1871. Collected Poems, ed. Oliver Bernard (1962). |
"For a long time I ... found the celebrities of modern painting and poetry ridiculous. I loved absurd pictures, fanlights, stage scenery, mountebanks' backcloths, inn-signs, cheap colored prints; unfashionable literature, church Latin, pornographic books badly spelt, grandmothers' novels, fairy stories, little books for children, old operas, empty refrains, simple rhythms."
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), French poet. "Délires II: Alchimie du Verbe," Une Saison en Enfer (1874). |
"I saw that all beings are fated to happiness: action is not life, but a way of wasting some force, an ennervation. Morality is the weakness of the brain."
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), French poet. repr. In Collected Poems, ed. Oliver Bernard (1962). "Délires II: Alchimie du Verbe," Une Saison en Enfer (1874). |
"But, truly, I have wept too much! The dawns are heartbreaking. Every moon is atrocious and every sun bitter."
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), French poet. repr. In Collected Poems, ed. Oliver Bernard (1962). Le Bateau Ivre (written 1871). |
"Life is the farce which everyone has to perform."
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), French poet. "Mauvais Sang," Une Saison en Enfer (1874). |
"Only divine love bestows the keys of knowledge."
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), French poet. "Mauvais Sang," Une Saison en Enfer (1874). |
"I am the slave of my baptism. Parents, you have caused my misfortune, and you have caused your own."
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), French poet. repr. In Collected Poems, ed. Oliver Bernard (1962). "Nuit de l'Enfer," Une Saison en Enfer (1874). |
"When you are seventeen you aren't really serious."
Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), French poet. repr. In Collected Poems, ed. Oliver Bernard (1962). Roman, sect. 1. |
| |
|
|
|
|
