The poems and letters of one of France's most unusual modern poets,
here in both French and English
Arthur Rimbaud was one of the wildest, most uncompromising poets of his
age, although his brief literary career was over by the time he was
twenty-one when he embarked on a new life as a trader in Africa. This
edition brings together his extraordinary poetry and more than a hundred
of his letters, most of them written after he had abandoned literature.
A master of French verse forms, the young Rimbaud set out to transform
his art, and language itself, by a systematic "disordering of all the
senses," often with the aid of alcohol and drugs. The result is a highly
innovative, modern body of work, obscene and lyrical by turns--a
rigorous journey to extremes.
Jeremy Harding and John Sturrock's new translation includes Rimbaud's
greatest verse, as well as his record of youthful torment, A Season in
Hell (1873), and more than 100 letters that unveil the man who turned
his back on poetry. The French text of the poems appears on pages facing
the English translations, and John Sturrock's introduction examines
Rimbaud's two very different careers.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of
classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700
titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works
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series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and
notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as
up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
