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A Season in Hell and The Drunken Boat Mass Market Paperback – January 17, 1961

French Edition by Arthur Rimbaud (Author), Louise Varese (Translator)

4.4 28 ratings

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The classic influential poems by Rimbaud, in a bilingual en face edition featuring acclaimed translations by Louise Varése.

Although he stopped writing at the age of nineteen, Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) possessed the most revolutionary talent of the past hundred years, and his poetry and prose have increasingly influenced the major writers of our century. To his masterpiece A Season in Hell is here added Rimbaud's longest and possibly greatest single poem The Drunken Boat, with the original French en face.

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 first publication of Mrs. 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 twenty-five-stanza The Drunken Boat, Dr. Enid Starkie of Oxford University has written: "(It is) 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 in this book.

Print length

108 pages
Language

French, English
Publisher

New Directions
Publication date

January 17, 1961
Dimensions

5.2 x 0.4 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

0811201856
ISBN-13

978-0811201858
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Unknown beyond the avant-garde at the time of his death in 1891, Arthur Rimbaud has become one of the most liberating influences on twentieth-century culture. Born Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud in Charleville, France, in 1854, Rimbaud’s family moved to Cours d’Orléans, when he was eight, where he began studying both Latin and Greek at the Pension Rossat. While he disliked school, Rimbaud excelled in his studies and, encouraged by a private tutor, tried his hand at poetry. Shortly thereafter, Rimbaud sent his work to the renowned symbolist poet Paul Verlaine and received in response a one-way ticket to Paris. By late September 1871, at the age of sixteen, Rimbaud had ignited with Verlaine one of the most notoriously turbulent affairs in the history of literature. Their relationship reached a boiling point in the summer of 1873, when Verlaine, frustrated by an increasingly distant Rimbaud, attacked his lover with a revolver in a drunken rage. The act sent Verlaine to prison and Rimbaud back to Charleville to finish his work on A Season in Hell. The following year, Rimbaud traveled to London with the poet Germain Nouveau, to compile and publish his transcendent Illuminations. It was to be Rimbaud’s final publication. By 1880, he would give up writing altogether for a more stable life as merchant in Yemen, where he stayed until a painful condition in his knee forced him back to France for treatment. In 1891, Rimbaud was misdiagnosed with a case of tuberculosis synovitis and advised to have his leg removed. Only after the amputation did doctors determine Rimbaud was, in fact, suffering from cancer. Rimbaud died in Marseille in November of 1891, at the age of 37. He is now considered a saint to symbolists and surrealists, and his body of works, which include Le bateau ivre (1871), Une Saison en Enfer (1873), and Les Illuminations (1873), have been widely recognized as a major influence on artists stretching from Pablo Picasso to Bob Dylan.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ New Directions (January 17, 1961)
Language ‏ : ‎ French, English
Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 108 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0811201856
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0811201858
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4.3 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.2 x 0.4 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,722,140 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #295 in French Poetry (Books)
- #2,152 in Poetry Anthologies (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.4 28 ratings

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R. Schwartz

Passionate, Painful, Agonizing and Surreal

Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2004

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What an amazing passionate book of prose and poetry! It's alive with pain, chaos and joy, screaming in anguish in streaming movement that is pouring out of the pages in utter agonizing derision and pain, flowing in surreal release of tension and expression.
The beginning of the book has a short bio and although short and concise, it vaguely talks about how scandalous Rimbaud and his companion Verlaine were in descriptive sexual analogy, refusing to use the word "sexual" and "lover."
Here was a young man who found a gay lover 20 years his senior and traveled in complete uncertainty and insecurity, a "Faustian Man," such as Dean Moriarty in Jack Kerouac's 'On The Road.' Rimbaud was a man who lived in the present moment of risk, spontaneity and the faith to walk in uncertainly and courageously. And this of course brings true living over the comfort zone of existing, which accompanies such an artist with intense pain, guilt, creativity, joy, hurt, anguish and exploding passions. The pages reek with chaotic artistic surrealism.
This man was a rare creator. An outcast of society, a vagabond in decadence and carousing avenging scandal, however a living man of flowing movement, unlike our dead, civilized and rational society. And for this, the man and his poetry snubbed and forgotten, only to be noticed at a later time and recognized for its aesthetic, passionate value. This is typical with almost all true creators of autonomous ability and dangerous living.
From page 23:
"Boredom is no longer my love. Rages, debauchery, madness, - I have known all their soarings and their disasters, - My whole burden is laid down. Let us contemplate undazed the extent of my innocence. I would no longer be capable of begging the solace of a bastinado. I don't fancy myself embarked on a wedding with Jesus Christ as father-in-law. I am not a prisoner of my reason. I said: God, I want freedom in salvation: how am I to seek it? Frivolous tastes have left me. No more need of devotion or of divine love. No more regrets for the age of render hearts. Each of us has his reason, scorn and charity; I reserve my place at the top of that angelic ladder of common sense. As for established happiness, domestic or not . . . no, I cannot. I am too dissipated, too weak. Life flourishing through toil, old platitude! As for me, my life is not heavy enough, it flies and floats far above action, that precious focus of the world. What an old maid I am getting to be, lacking the courage to be in love with death! If only God would grant me celestial, aerial calm, prayer, - like the ancient Saints, - Saints, giants! anchorites, artists such as are not wanted any more! Farce without end? My innocence would make me weep. Life is the farce we all have to lead."

10 people found this helpful

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Jaemi K

These are my favorite pieces of Rimbaud's thus far

Reviewed in the United States on May 1, 2015

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These are my favorite pieces of Rimbaud's thus far, and this translation in particular is a compelling and excellent read for those of us not versed in his native French. There isn't much one can say about Rimbaud, as his mind really needs to be experienced rather than explained.

Reviewed in the United States on June 14, 2006

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After reading his Illuminations, I decided that I definitely wanted to encounter more of Arthur Rimbaud. I was intrigued by his creative proposition that in order to become engaged with existence the poet must place himself at variance with life. This positioning of the poet in surging counter-subjectivity to life is somewhat Hegelian in that it induces not only a creative synthesis but suffering as its essential Muse. While A Season in Hell is mature Rimbaud toward the end of his life, the Drunken Boat is clearly his finest individual poem. One discovers a symbolic clarity in this single work that summarizes his amazing thirst for life and the human condition in a brief poem of only 25 stanzas. This really is a magnificent work reminiscent of Blake with a style and a passion that transformed his genre and left him immortal. I earnestly invite you to read this telling, visually rich and important work by a major poet of immense talent. It will broaden the palette through which you perceive the brush strokes and colors of your life's impressions.

7 people found this helpful

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Robert Shapiro

Best Translation Thus far

Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2011

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This Louise Varese version of Rimbaud's "A Season in Hell", in my opinion, is the best translation to appear in English, with the French on each opposing page, for Varese has nothing to hide. I feel that the recent translations to appear attempt to differ from the Varese version, in order to bring a more literal and therefore less poetic vision to this visionary poetry. Compare the opening page:

"My Life was a Feast..." to the end of the page

with any other version. The Varese version simply best convey's the spirit of the poem.
When I read any other version, I actually find myself substituting Vareses' choices.
Varese was the wife of avant-garde composer, Edgard Varese, the first to write electronic music.
There is nothing electronic, or robotic, however, with regard to these translations.
They are as fresh, still, as freshly-cut flowers.

Robert Shapiro (author of "Les Six: The French Composers and Their Mentors Jean Cocteau and Erik Satie" published by Peter Owen in 2011)

5 people found this helpful

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Clark LaBelle

A Great Young Talent!

Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2014

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Rimbaud was great. Reminds me of when I was a punk rocker. His talent was so great, and he was not much older than a teen ager. Too bad he didn't write his poems all his life. Probably he didn't have enough discipline. I say no more because I don't want to leave a record of my stupidity.

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Harry F. Drabik

You've got to like Rimbaud

Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2013

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The period in time, the characters involved, and the poetic movement are interesting, but together form a specialized interest you will either like or not get too fussed over. I appreciated parts of it but not enough to enthuse here.

3 people found this helpful

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Derrick L. Spalding

wow

Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2013

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This is a good book to learn how to read a little bit of french, as well as the french poet structure.

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Top reviews from other countries

peter mohideen

translated different than the currently available one

Reviewed in Canada on August 1, 2023

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glad I could still find this version. it's translated differently than the wyatt mason version and I prefer this one, by louise varése. translation means everything to poetry and my opinion is this is the version you want to get

Thomas Videira

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 17, 2016

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Perfect!

One person found this helpful

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