“My native town is supremely idiotic among provincial towns.”

Original: Ma ville natale est supérieurement idiote entre les petites villes de province. — The young Rimbaud’s contempt for provincial narrowness accompanies his growing desire to escape. · Letter to Georges Izambard, 25 August 1870 (French)

• Discontentment
• Freedom
• Place

“I am going to reveal all the mysteries: religious or natural, death, birth, future, past, cosmogony, nothingness.”

Original: Je vais révéler tous les mystères: mystères religieux ou naturels, mort, naissance, avenir, passé, cosmogonie, néant. — Rimbaud imagines the poet as an explorer confronting the largest mysteries of existence. · A Season in Hell, Bad Blood, 1873 (French)

• Discovery
• Existence
• Mystery

“Free to the new ones to hate their ancestors: one is at home and has time.”

Original: Libre aux nouveaux! d’exécrer les ancêtres: on est chez soi et l’on a le temps. — Rimbaud defends the right of new artists to reject inherited authorities and create on their own terms. · Letter to Paul Demeny, 15 May 1871 (French)

• Freedom
• Originality
• Tradition