“I have always had a strong neuralgia where my leg was amputated, that is, in the part that remains.”

Original: J’ai toujours une forte névralgie à la place de la jambe coupée, c’est-à-dire au morceau qui reste. — The clinical description is strikingly direct and reveals the physical reality of his final illness. · Letter to Isabelle Rimbaud, 17 June 1891 (French)

• Body
• Endurance
• Suffering

“I have decided to give you an hour of new literature.”

Original: J’ai résolu de vous donner une heure de littérature nouvelle. — Rimbaud announces his poetic manifesto with remarkable confidence for a sixteen-year-old writer. · Letter to Paul Demeny, 15 May 1871 (French)

• Confidence
• Innovation
• Poetry

“I invented the colour of vowels.”

Original: J’inventai la couleur des voyelles! — Rimbaud describes his experiments in linking language, colour and sensory perception. · A Season in Hell, Alchemy of the Word, 1873 (French)

• Imagination
• Language
• Senses