PRAISE FOR WYATT MASON’S
RIMBAUD COMPLETE, VOLUME I: POETRY AND PROSE
“It’s quite likely that [the season’s] most exciting new book of verse was stamped Made in France more than a century ago.… Rimbaud Complete, Wyatt Mason’s bouncy new translation of the avant-garde poet’s hallucinatory corpus, finds new music in the writing, revealing a classical artist.”
—Entertainment Weekly, Editor’s Choice, A-
“An important new rendering of a major poet.”
—Library Journal
“Mason’s translations are confident and contemporary—muscular but without muscling in on the originals. There is no crabby diction, but neither is there that self-conscious pseudo-hipness with which it’s all too tempting to render Rimbaud’s lolling truculence of pose. Mason’s approach has been to aim for common (as distinct from middle) ground between the literalist and the free, and the decision to translate successive versions and drafts pays off too, letting English-speaking readers see the genesis of poems and trace their often substantial alterations. Mason gets Rimbaud’s range across impressively.”
—The Times Literary Supplement
“Mason does a splendid job in arrangement and translation.”
—The Tampa Tribune
“Wyatt Mason’s translations of Rimbaud’s literary works manage, more than any others, to convey to contemporary ears the real sense of the work. Previous attempts had strained to maintain a sense of the French style or an equivalence in rhyme and form. For all their good intentions, these ideals forced the renderings into awkward locutions or pretentiously formal tropes, making Rimbaud sound as much like a biblical elder as a modern poet. Mason has finally given us an English Rimbaud we can read as we should, as if he were kin to Jack Kerouac, to Charles Bukowski, to Jim Morrison.… His Rimbaud Complete will surely live on as the standard edition.
—Toronto Star
“Wyatt Mason’s [translations] capture the rigours of the original.”
—London Review of Books
“Exceptional new translator Wyatt Mason limns the afterlife of Arthur Rimbaud’s thirty-seven chaotic years on Earth.… There is no small literary excitement in this, one of the best Rimbaud translations in English and certainly the most complete.”
—The Buffalo News, Editor’s Choice
“A monumental achievement … a book to treasure.”
—Scotland on Sunday
PRAISE FOR WYATT MASON’S
RIMBAUD COMPLETE, VOLUME II: I PROMISE TO BE GOOD, THE LETTERS
“Perhaps you know him only by myth: Bad boy rebel poet, possibly gay but probably bisexual, lover of the lesser poet Paul Verlaine, survivor of literary and romantic scenes worthy of Norman Mailer.… Wyatt Mason, in a word, detests all that; he shows us, in his straightforward translations of these letters from the second half of Rimbaud’s life (ages nineteen to thirty-seven), a man dedicated to factual information, a simple but elegant describer of the foreign lands … a man who gives up poetry to look at the world with a disciplined eye, who sleeps outdoors for the last twenty years of his life—now there’s a writer you can sink your teeth into.”
—Los Angeles Times
“The book is fascinating for the voice it reveals … the post-poetic Rimbaud, the man glimpsed in bracingly cold letters sent to his family.… Mason’s translation is crisp and lively, and his clear-eyed introduction is essential reading for anyone besotted with the image of the poet as tragic figure.”
—Time Out New York
“Mason, the American translator who last year published Rimbaud’s collected poems in English [unveils] an Apollonian craftsman, one who took infinite pains to achieve perfection of expression.… Mason’s an agile, skillful translator.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Thanks to Wyatt Mason’s masterly translations, Rimbaud has, after a century and a half, recovered his gift.”
—Askold Melnyczuk
“Modern Library’s Rimbaud Complete, translated and edited by Wyatt Mason … includes all of Rimbaud’s poetry as well as uncollected writings ranging from Latin school compositions to fragments of poems reconstructed by his acquaintances. This is now joined by I Promise to Be Good: The Letters of Arthur Rimbaud, the largest sampling of the poet’s correspondence yet to appear in English.”
—The New Yorker
“Mason’s elegant translations flow smoothly off the page.”
—Library Journal
“Wyatt Mason’s translation of Rimbaud’s letters is a swashbuckler of a book, nothing less than a resurrection of a remarkable life. As such, it is a worthy companion to Mason’s fine translation of the poems. No admirer of Rimbaud will want to be without it.”
—Arthur Goldhammer
“The letters themselves are bizarre, twisted, and oddly welcoming.… Mason’s introduction is invaluable. It grounds the details from Rimbaud’s letters in a concrete narrative, filling in gaps without the benefit of other people’s return letters, the other half of Rimbaud’s conversations. Mason acts as conductor, whispering into our ears through footnotes that treat their subject playfully and respectfully at the same time.”
—The San Francisco Bay Guardian
2005 Modern Library Paperback Edition
Compilation copyright © 2005 by Random House, Inc.
Introduction copyright © 2005 by Wyatt Mason
Translation copyright © 2002 by Wyatt Mason
Maps copyright © 2003 by David Lindroth, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Modern Library, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
MODERN LIBRARY and the TORCHBEARER Design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The translations in this work were originally published, sometimes in a slightly different format, in Rimbaud Complete, translated by Wyatt Mason, published in 2002 by Modern Library, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
eBook ISBN: 978-0-307-80182-1
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-679-64327-3
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Rimbaud, Arthur, 1854–1891.
[Saison en enfer. English & French]
A season in hell; & Illuminations/Arthur Rimbaud; translated, edited & with an introduction by Wyatt Mason.
p. cm.
Poems in English and French; commentary in English.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-679-64327-3 (trade pbk.)
I. Mason, Wyatt Alexander II. Rimbaud, Arthur, 1854–1891. Illuminations. English & French. III. Title: Illuminations. IV. Title.
PQ2387.R5S313 2005
841’.8—dc22
2005043884
Printed in the United States of America
www.modernlibrary.com
Frontispiece: A sketch by Rimbaud from a school notebook, done when he was ten.
The waving figure sitting in the skiff is shouting au secours—help!
v3.1
To the memory of
Guy Mattison Davenport, Jr.
1927–2005
One must be absolutely modern.
—Arthur Rimbaud,
A SEASON IN HELL
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
A Note on Using This eBook
Introduction
Chronology
Maps
English
A SEASON IN HELL
“LONG AGO, IF MY MEMORY SERVES [ … ]”
BAD BLOOD
NIGH
T IN HELL
DELIRIA
I. FOOLISH VIRGIN
II. ALCHEMY OF THE WORD
THE IMPOSSIBLE
LIGHTNING
MORNING
FAREWELL
ILLUMINATIONS
AFTER THE FLOOD
CHILDHOOD
TALE
SIDESHOW
ANTIQUE
BEING BEAUTEOUS
LIVES
DEPARTURE
ROYALTY
FOR A REASON
DRUNKEN MORNING
LINES
UNTITLED FRAGMENTS
WORKERS
BRIDGES
CITY
RUTS
CITIES [I]
VAGABONDS
CITIES [II]
VIGILS
MYSTIC
FLOWERS
COMMON NOCTURNE
SEASCAPE
WINTER CELEBRATED
ANGUISH
METROPOLITAN
BARBARIAN
FAIRY
WAR
ADVT.
YOUTH
PROMONTORY
DEVOTION
DEMOCRACY
STAGES
HISTORIC EVENING
BOTTOM
H
MOVEMENT
GENIUS
A DRAFT OF A SEASON IN HELL
[FROM BAD BLOOD]
FALSE CONVERSION
[FROM DELIRIA II: ALCHEMY OF THE WORD]
HUNGER
ETERNITY
GOLDEN AGE
MEMORY
ENDS OF THE EARTH
BL[IS]S
FOUR SEASONS
French
UNE SAISON EN ENFER
“JADIS, SI JE ME SOUVIENS BIEN [ … ]”
MAUVAIS SANG
NUIT DE L’ENFER
DÉLIRES
I. VIERGE FOLLE
II. ALCHIMIE DU VERBE
L’IMPOSSIBLE
L’ÉCLAIR
MATIN
ADIEU
ILLUMINATIONS
APRÈS LE DÉLUGE
ENFANCE
CONTE
PARADE
ANTIQUE
BEING BEAUTEOUS
VIES
DÉPART
ROYAUTÉ
À UNE RAISON
MATINÉE D’IVRESSE
PHRASES
FRAGMENTS SANS TITRE
LES PONTS
VILLE
ORNIÈRES
VILLES [I]
VAGABONDS
VILLES [II]
VEILLÉES
MYSTIQUE
AUBE
FLEURS
NOCTURNE VULGAIRE
MARINE
FÊTE D’HIVER
ANGOISSE
MÉTROPOLITAIN
BARBARE
FAIRY
GUERRE
SOLDE
JEUNESSE
PROMONTOIRE
DÉVOTION
DÉMOCRATIE
SCÈNES
SOIR HISTORIQUE
BOTTOM
H
MOUVEMENT
GÉNIE
BROUILLON D’UNE SAISON EN ENFER
MAUVAIS SANG
FAUSSE CONVERSION
DÉLIRES II: ALCHIMIE DU VERBE
FAIM
ÉTERNITÉ
GE D’OR
MÉMOIRE
CONFINS DU MONDE
BONR
Acknowledgments
A Note on Sources
Selected Bibliography
About the Translator
A Note on Using This eBook
In this eBook edition of A Season in Hell & Illuminations, the title of each poem contains a hyperlink that allows you to navigate back and forth between the English translation and the original French text.
INTRODUCTION
He was arrested and thrown in jail, at fifteen, for vagrancy by the Paris police. He stabbed a photographer, at sixteen, who had taken his photographic portrait only weeks before. He seduced a fellow poet, at seventeen, prying the much older man away from his pregnant wife. And yet, these famous instances from the biography of French poet Arthur Rimbaud, while true (or as true as hundred-year-old hearsay can be), only hint at the young poet’s fundamental depravity, only show him splashing in its shallows. Its veritable depths, and nature, were revealed one winter in London’s British Museum. On the 25th of March, 1873, Rimbaud pushed through the padded leather doors that lead into the museum’s copper-domed Round Reading Room. And there, rung by a high circle of windows spilling daylight into the basin of tables—tables that would host Charles Dickens, Karl Marx, Virginia Woolf, and so many more—Rimbaud, the rebel, the blasphemer, the poet who would become famous for his “long, involved, and logical derangement of all the senses,” committed his most representative crime. Its inception remains indelibly marked on the library’s register for that day:
On line 1351, above the day’s eighth registrant (the pristinely forgotten Henry Elliot of Park Row), the day’s seventh applicant, eighteen-year-old Arthur Rimbaud, in a cramped hand, affirmed that he had read the “DIRECTIONS respecting the Reading Room”—
This was an old lie from the young man, one Rimbaud had been perfecting, in various forms, for years: when he was fifteen, sending poems and pleas from his home in the sticks to famous poets in Paris, claiming that he was seventeen (“Something in me … wants to break free”); or, when he was seventeen and writing them again, suggesting he was eighteen (“The same idiot is sending you more of his stuff.… Am I progressing?”). And yet, if Rimbaud’s early lies hooked him little more than minnows, the London version at last landed him a whale: a Reader’s Ticket to the great library, one that settled some of England’s choicest literary treasures into a boy’s scheming hands. This ticket gave Rimbaud the run of a collection that no less a littérateur than Vladimir Lenin (who told his own whopper when he registered there using the alias “Jacob Richter”) endorsed as having more Russian books than could be found in Russia. And with this rare abundance, not only in Russian books but in every language, what infamy did the eighteen-year-old Rimbaud then commit? What did this figure who subsequent generations of poets, the Pounds and Eliots and Cummingses (not to mention, later still, the Dylans and Morrisons and Reeds) looked to as the prototype of the bohemian poet, the rebel auteur, the sage and scourge—what, having lied his way into Alexandria, did Rimbaud then do?
In keeping with the conduct some anecdotes insist was his habit, it would not be unreasonable to wonder if Rimbaud began writing on table-tops, not with schoolboy pencils but, as some have reported he did in Paris cafés, with his own excrement. Or, in keeping with the behavior some contend was his custom, not unfathomable to suppose that he might have dropped his pants and, as some say he did into man’s glass of milk, ejaculated onto the pages of the Magna Carta. Or did this famously libidinous bard seduce unsuspecting scholars? Or did the bellicose poet cleave out the pages of books with the very same sword cane’s blade that perhaps pierced a photographer’s belly? Or, forgoing these trifles, these low sports, having come, after all, so far—from Paris, “the big shitty,” and before Paris, Charleville, the “moronic, provincial little town” from which he hailed—did Rimbaud decide, what the hell, to burn the place down to the ground?
Well, no. In fact, Rimbaud did nothing so supposedly Rimbaldean. He lied about his age, yes, but for one reason only, and not a particularly pornographic one: he lied so he could sit there, under the great dome, undisturbed, in good light, for weeks, and read.
The lives of writers are, not untypically, rather dull. A grotesque amount of time goes to waste, or seems to. Lock a man or woman in a room for ten years while he or she writes a novel or epic poem, and dinner-table talk tends to suffer, won’t overflow with thrilling tales. And so, in Rimbaud’s case, there is no question that his life supplies us with an uncommon quantity of entertaining hooks that might make the biographies of other wr
iters seem, by comparison, dullsville. After all, Rimbaud did indeed write nearly all his poetry during his teens; and yes, truly, he was a serial runaway from fourteen on, hiking through France during wartime, alone; and absolutely he shoplifted; and sure he hightailed it repeatedly to Paris in the hope of being anointed by the poets he wished to have as peers; and you bet he was shot, in the wrist, by one of his lovers; and later, when he was done with poetry (for, of course, he famously said goodbye to poetry, at twenty-one, or, if not exactly goodbye, exited in the middle of the party and left the front door perplexingly wide open), he did sell grosses of guns to various African warlords. And, of course, there is his early, miserable death from cancer, or syphilis, or gangrene (for we cannot verify the cause), although we do know it followed complications that arose after the amputation of a leg, when he was just thirty-seven.
But this list of wicked plot points is, just that, a list, one I compiled in five minutes and which you read through in seconds. Rather than believing it tells us anything deeply revealing about Rimbaud’s life, and instead of seeing it as proof of regular, serial upheavals, one might instead acknowledge, after scanning them, that these events, really only a handful sprinkled over a life, were, however dark, ultimately incidental, minor marks on an otherwise pale sheet, punctuation that breaks the monotonous phrase printed there that better describes Rimbaud’s early life. That phrase? It says, in a repeating loop: a man, sitting, in various chairs, reading; a man, sitting, at various desks, writing.
And so, when we read Rimbaud’s letter to a friend, in May of 1873, composed shortly after he returned from his time spent reading in London, we get a truer sense of his days than the dirty thumbnail theater his bio might suggest. Sitting in a barn in his mother’s family farm in Roche—a very pastoral image that, one of well-fed livestock and clucking chickens—Rimbaud wrote to his boyhood friend Ernest Delahaye to gripe about his boredom: “What a pain in the ass, and what monstrous innocents these peasants are.” Rimbaud provided his friend with a sketch, his self-portrait-as-wandering-vagrant, complete with staff in hand: