A Season In Hell & Illuminations

Each new generation looks forward to fresh translations of classic works, and the publisher has obliged with these bilingual versions of 19th-century France's most notorious poets. The poems found in Flowers of Evil reflect the hardship and suffering in Baudelaire's life. Their psychological atmosphere evolves around a double character, that of an artist interpreting the universe and that of a human being searching for the self through the torment of a spiritual and emotional chaos. Baudelaire was harshly prosecuted for obscenity and blasphemy, and six of the poems presented here were banned until 1949. Intended as a complement and a companion to Flower of Evil , the prose poems of Paris Spleen appear even more pessimistic, sentimental, and chaotic, symbolizing the disharmony of the modern human being. This very successful new translation is highly recommended. Rimbaud's Season in Hell is a combination of an autobiography and an enigmatic dream sequence. A first-person narrator with various voices and personalities depicts his struggle to overcome suffering. Rimbaud, one of the most imaginative French poets, reveals the tensions between the poet's dreams and reality, hope and despair. In Illusions , the adolescent poet merges the sky, the sea, and the land into a new and enigmatic universe of explosive beauty and fantastic landscapes. The tone of the narrator in both poems is frequently sarcastic and ironic but highly poetic. The translation is generally successful, though not as outstanding as that of Baudelaire's works. Still, it is recommended as an insightful new look at Rimbaud's poetry.
- Ali Houissa, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, N.Y.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.