A Season in Hell/The Drunken
Boat
By Arthur Rimbaud, Louise Varèse
Although he stopped
writing at the age of 19, Arthur Rimbaud (1854-91) possessed the most
revolutionary talent of the century. His poetry & prose have increasingly
influenced major writers. To his masterpiece A Season in Hell is here added
Rimbaud's longest & possibly greatest single poem The Drunken Boat, with the
original French en face Illuminations, Rimbaud's major works are available as
bilingual New Directions Paperbooks. The reputation of A Season in Hell, which
is a poetic record of a man's examination of his own depths, has steadily
increased over the years. Upon the 1st publication of Varese's translation by
New Directions, the Saturday Review wrote: "One may at last suggest that the
translation of A Season in Hell has reached a conclusive point..." Concerning
the 25-stanza The Drunken Boat, Dr Enid Starkie of Oxford University has
written: "(It's) an anthology of separate lines of astonishing evocative magic
which linger in the mind like isolated jewels." Rimbaud's life was so
extraordinary that it has taken on the quality of a myth. A biographical
chronology is included. This book is so amazing considering the fact that
Arthur Rimbaud stopped writing at 19. The age that most of us are just
beginning the journey of finding ourselves, he already knew who he was and had
completed his life's work.
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