Synopsis
The prose poems of the great French Symbolist, Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), have acquired enormous prestige among readers everywhere and have been a revolutionary influence on poetry in the twentieth century. They are offered here both in their original texts and in superb English translations by Louise Varèse. Mrs. Varèse first published her versions of Rimbaud’s Illuminations in 1946. Since then she has revised her work and has included two poems which in the interim have been reclassified as part of Illuminations. This edition also contains two other series of prose poems, which include two poems only recently discovered in France, together with an introduction in which Miss Varèse discusses the complicated ins and outs of Rimbaldien scholarship and the special qualities of Rimbaud’s writing. Rimbaud was indeed the most astonishing of French geniuses. Fired in childhood with an ambition to write, he gave up poetry before he was twenty-one. Yet he had already produced some of the finest examples of French verse. He is best known for A Season in Hell, but his other prose poems are no less remarkable. While he was working on them he spoke of his interest in hallucinations––"des vertiges, des silences, des nuits." These perceptions were caught by the poet in a beam of pellucid, and strangely active language which still lights up––now here, now there––unexplored aspects of experience and thought.
About the Author
The poetic genius of Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) blossomed early and burned briefly. Nearly all of his work was composed when he was in his teens. During the century following his death at thirty-seven, Rimbaud's work and life have influenced generations of readers and writers. Radical in its day, Rimbaud's writing took some of the first and most fundamental steps toward the liberation of poetry from the formal constraints of its history, and now represents one of the most powerful and enduring bodies of poetic expression in human history.
Wyatt Mason has translated the works of various contemporary French writers, and has been a finalist for the French-American Foundation Translation Prize. His translation of Arthur Rimbaud's poetical and prose works, "Rimbaud Complete," appeared in 2002 from the Modern Library. His writing has appeared in "Harper's," "The Nation," and the "Los Angeles Times," He was named a fellow of the New York Public Library's Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers for 2003-2004. His current projects include a new translation of Dante's "La Vita Nuova," for the Modern Library. He is also at work on a translation of the essays of Michel de Montaigne.
Daniel Sloate is the author of "The Countess Plays" and "Of Dissonance and Shadows," He lives in Montreal, Quebec.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
