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A Season in Hell and The Illuminations

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Arthur Rimbaud is one of the great poetic geniuses in the canon of world history. His brilliance manifests itself in his iconoclastic criticism of the world at large, a world which condemns him in his relentless pursuit of truth. These poems are a vision of personal truth, one rooted in pain and experience, in the lessons of a life which was bled out of him in the streets of Paris and the crumbling cities of the Old World. Rimbaud, like Baudelaire, is a decadent genius, offering insights into the human soul and its relation to a world which offers nothing but alienation. His verses are strange and unfamiliar, breaking conventional poetic forms to such an extent that it cannot be considered rebellion; it is almost as though he disregards the work of every poet before him to find a perfectly honest form of expression. And the results are striking. If sometimes a bit obtuse, his poems have the feeling of a revelatory hymn: each word conveys layers of meaning, and when taken together they form a sort of gestalt for the human spirit. Rimbaud, like those he inspired--from Jim Morrison to Alan Ginsberg--is voice of suffering and redemption that should not be ignored.

It's been well over a century since Arthur Rimbaud penned "A Season in Hell" and "Illuminations" in his native French. It is said by many that "Illuminations" was the most complex collection that Rimbaud wrote in his short span of writing, but this translation by Mark Treharne truly captured the essence of Rimbauds work. "A Season in Hell & Illuminations" embodies Rimbauds thoughts and state of being at the time with his amazing use of metaphors and grasp of the written word. This book is definately a must have for the most zealous Rimbaud fans and new readers alike.