Arthur Rimbaud — a remark

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“I cannot make a step outside my stretcher; my knee swelled before my eyes and the pain kept increasing.”

Original: Je n’ai jamais pu faire un pas hors de ma civière, mon genou gonflait à vue d’œil et la douleur augmentait continuellement. — The stark account records Rimbaud’s endurance during his final, agonising journey from the interior to the coast. · Letter describing the journey from Harar to Zeilah, 1891 (French)

Arthur Rimbaud

About Arthur Rimbaud

Arthur Rimbaud

20 October 1854–10 November 1891

Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was born on 20 October 1854 in Charleville, in the Ardennes region of northeastern France, and died on 10 November 1891 in Marseille. Few writers have produced so small a body of work and so immense a legend. Rimbaud wrote nearly all the poetry for which he is remembered between his…

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“I have done with Europe.”

Original: Je n’ai plus rien à faire en Europe. — The remark captures Rimbaud’s decisive psychological and geographical break with his former European life. · Letter to his family from Aden, 1880s (French)

“I became a master of silence.”

Original: Je devins un opéra fabuleux: je vis que tous les êtres ont une fatalité de bonheur. — The passage belongs to Rimbaud’s retrospective account of visionary experience and the possibility of universal happiness. · A Season in Hell, Alchemy of the Word, 1873 (French)

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